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A PEACTICAL GUIDE 



ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 



LONDON: PillNTED BY 

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STEEET SQUAEE 

AND PARLIAMENT STEEET 



ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 



A COMPLETE PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE 
WHOLE SUBJECT 



BY E. WADHAM. 



O sing it to a subtle melody, 

That the sweet warbling cadences may fall 

Like dew about the flowers of fair poesy. 



LONDON : 

LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 

1869. 




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PREFACE. 



This woke; claims to be an exhaustive treatise on Eng- 
lish versification, giving a complete view of all measures, 
their nature, relative bearing, and application. Every 
possible form that English verse can assume will here 
be found indicated, besides every moot-point, such as 
the feasibility of naturalising the hexameter, fully and 
finally settled. It is shown how much too narrowly 
drawn are the accepted limits of verse, and from how 
much the poet has allowed himself to be debarred, from 
a great if not indeed, the better part of his domain. 

In addition to the fact that this is the first treatise of 
the kind ever completed, it is also the first attempt to 
set native versification on its own basis as independent 
of the system pursued by the Greeks and Eomans, on 
which the British muse has so long been unwisely 
affiliated. 

To the blind regard for precedent at the bottom of 
the false method prevalent is to be ascribed the present 
most backward and unsatisfactory state of the art both 
in practice and in theory, and its non-attainment of 



VI PREFACE. 

anything approaching what must be held as its due 
development. From time to time a very slight step 
in advance has been taken by some poet, in a slightly 
novel arrangement of rhymes, seldom more ; but the 
progress has been slow and painful to the last degree, 
that to this hour much is unaccepted and tentative 
what to have been fully known and worked two cen- 
turies ago would not have been early. 

From this neglect and misconception that English 
versification has so long lain under, having had to de- 
lineate almost a new science, it has been necessary, like 
for an explorer in an unknown country, to give appella- 
tions to every landmark pointed out; and here, be it 
said, care has been taken to render these as appropriate 
as possible. 

A perusal of the present analysis will at once show, 
even to such as are comparatively unacquainted with 
the orthodox scope of English poetics, how much our 
national literature is likely to have suffered through 
want of some such induction to metric science as is now 
at length made attainable. It is hoped that this manual 
will in no mean degree serve to advance the proper 
study of the mother-tongue, only now beginning to 
receive in our schools and colleges some slight share 
of the consideration most justly its due. 

To compare the number of hand-books that teem 
continually from the press, for teaching versification in 
Greek and Latin, with the utter dearth of books of the 



PREFACE. Vll 



like nature for English, surely, if better were not known, 
one would be for forming notions quite contrary to 
correct as to which were the dead speech, which the 
living. Surely this is a state of affairs other than m 
national honour it should be, and here at least is one 
step remedial. It remains to be seen whether the con- 
fidence in a general desire for better things which this 
publication implies has or has not been misplaced. 

January 7, 1869. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Outlines of Metre 1 

II. Historic — Old Alliterative Measure . . . .10 

III." March Metre — Blank Verse . . . . . .14 

IV. March Metre, Rhymed 27 

V. Tripping Metre . . .38 

VI. Quick Verse, Unrhymed — Crown 43 

VII. False Metre and Dubious 54 

VIII. Quick Verse, Rhymed 61 

IX. The Unrhymed Stave „ .68 

X. The Stave Rhymed 75 

XI. Continuation of ditto . .85 

XII. The Lay 92 

XIII. Mid-rhyme Formations 98 

XIV. Remaining Forms of the Ode 102 

XV. Revert 109 

XVI. On Rhyme, Half-rhyme, Alliteration, &c 112 

XVII. Junctions 121 

XVIII. Tone Verse 125 

XIX. Cesural Verse . . 129 

XX. Free Verse 132 

XXI. Hover — Feet versus Main . . . . . . .135 

XXII. Main 139 

XXIII. On the Rendering of Greek Metre 145 

XXIV. Conclusion . . . . 150 



ENGLISH VEESIFICATION. 



I. 

OUTLINES OF METRE. 

Verse in the abstract is a system of proportion in which the 
poetic mind embodies its creations. The poet in all ages and 
all countries employs this plastic tool for the same reason 
as the musician observes time in music. The one deals with 
sounds, the other with words, the rhythmic weaving of which 
constitutes, with either, his art. Where the sense of propor- 
tion begins, there art takes its rise, for art and proportion are 
one : wherever, then, we can trace proportion among words, 
there we shall have verse. 

From the outset none should make confusion between the 
terms c verse' and 'poetry.' These are indeed for the most 
part used synonymously, but verse strictly is the warp and 
weft of the gorgeous texture, and might exist without poetical 
colours as easily as tissue might be woven without pattern or 
facing of any kind ; the term poetry, on the other hand, only 
correctly belongs to the finished fancy bright woven in. 
Now with poetry proper — the soul of the Muse, so to say — we 
have little or nothing to do in this treatise save reflectively ; 
our task is lower, less etherial somewhat: we have her 
blessed body to anatomise. 

So much for verse and poetry ; now a few words for verse 
and prose. 

Literary prose, at least with some writers, is to the full as 
artificial a product as much verse, and as far removed with 

B 



2 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

its balanced forms from the run of every-day speech ; but in 
that it has neither return of sound as rhyme, nor fixed move- 
ment as metric feet, nor settled length as the line, nor reliable 
and regular cadence, all and each of which severally and 
together form the constituents of metre, the limitation be- 
tween prose and verse is hardly ever matter of doubt even 
for the shortest space. 

The most distinguishing feature of verse from prose is, 
then, that it has its proportions more clearly marked — is in 
fact more rhythmic. The line of precision between the two, 
which indeed all do not draw at the same place, it will be 
one of our objects to carefully delineate as we proceed. 

All readers of poetry must occasionally in their lives have 
perused the first line or so of a poem before they fell into 
the run of it. For such few moments the verses were as 
prose to them. It is this rhythm, run, or sing-song, which 
is the most characteristic quality of verse, being in fact the 
manifestation of its innate proportion. 

Verse read with this rhythm or run purposely ignored 
no longer wears metric semblance : could prose be of suffi- 
cient regularity to allow of being repeated in such-like 
rhythmic manner, verse it would become, even as the highest 
development of the same regimen transforms further into 
song, articulate or otherwise. There can be no uttered verse 
without something of this rhythm in the tone, even as there 
can be no song without singing, though excessive leaning to 
it be voted vulgar; a question of taste there is no call to ar- 
bitrate upon. Precisely as in song a tone is lent to words 
they do not otherwise possess, so in all verse is rhythm a 
change and modulation of cadential tone conformable to the 
metre. 

It is in the simple natural fact that all exaltation is 
rhythmic that verse founds its right to existence, for rhythm 
conversely has a tendency to produce elevation, which of 
course is the desideratum of the poet. 

We thus see why the ordinary distinction between prose 
and poetry is allowed to be determined by the outward sym- 



OUTLINES OF METKE. 3 

bol of verse, suffered to rest rather on the form than on the 
spirit. The true spirit of poetry is often as marked in a 
prose writer as in a poet, sometimes more so for certain dis- 
tances ; but the systematic elevation of verse is the guise in 
which the instinct of habit teaches us to look for the genuine 
production, as we should for the king to the man wearing the 
crown. If so doing we are deceived, anger arises at the indi- 
vidual whose assumption of the symbol of royalty has misled 
us; and so it is the world has nothing but scorn for the undue 
assumer of the crown of verse whose claim is not warranted 
by performance. 

For the manifestation of proportion, in one word rhythm, 
there must of course be some proportionate principle applied, 
which thus constitutes the metrical base of the verse. The 
nature of this base is dependent on that of the particular 
language, and may be of various kinds, the only requirement 
being metrical capability. 

In English every word of more than one syllable receives 
a greater accent or stroke of the voice on one part than 
another: thus, simple, intelligible, obligation, on the first, 
second, third syllables respectively, the voice invariably sing- 
ling one with the strong beat. Also the words which con- 
sist only of one syllable have the accents one among another 
according to their relative importance. Thus if we say ' the 
leaves are falling from the trees, 5 ' leaves ' and ' trees ' have 
a no less decided emphasis over their more unimportant 
fellows than the syllable 'fall ' over 6 ing' in the longer word. 

This system of accentuation is an inseparable part and 
parcel of all our speech ; and in fact the real life, movement, 
and soul of it. Of so great importance, and marking strongly 
place and place, it appears naturally to impart an idea of 
proportion, and lend itself to metric use, of which, as said, 
that is the ulterior principle. 

The accents of a verse falling at regulated intervals divide 
it into what are called feet, the commonly accepted unit in 
most versification, which, however, should rather be the line. 

The ways in which verse may be constituted by arrange - 

B 2 



4 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

ment of the accent are various: the foot may consist of two 
syllables or of three, and a very different effect is produced, 
according as one syllable or other of the number is the one 
emphasized. 

But besides the accentual system, which we may look on as 
native, there is another, and rival, against which it has to 
make good its ground. This is the totally different base of 
quantity or prosody, on which the Greeks, closely imitated 
by the Latins, constructed the whole body of their poetry. 

Prosody was a regulation of syllables by their vowels and 
consonants according to ease of utterance. We are accus- 
tomed to say loosely of this system, a vowel before another 
became short, one before two consonants long — a mere figure 
of speech, the vowel itself not being qualified by such con- 
siderations, only the syllable generally. 

It seems strange to us how so subtle a distinction as that 
of time in pronouncing a syllable could ever have made itself 
felt, but it was probably accompanied by a cadencing of the 
voice in marked rise and fall. - 

The ways in which it was possible to arrange syllables two 
and three together by this method were many and various, 
but all those with which it is necessary for us to concern our- 
selves are these five, the most important : — 

Of Two Syllables. Of Three Syllables. 

A spondee — both long A dactyl — long short short 

An iambus — short long An anapaest — short short long 
A trochee — long short 

Now, whatever the respective merits of the two systems, 
one thing it behoves, namely, not to confound them. This, 
however, appears rather to have been sought than avoided. 
Certain souls who saw nothing but Latin and Greek, or their 
reflex, in all the universe, hit on the happy expedient of 
calling the English feet by the above names, applied on this 
wise. Take an accented syllable to represent a long one, an 
unaccented a short, and arrange equivalents according, to go 
by the same names. The feet thus dubbed are then to be 



OUTLINES OF METRE. 5 

deemed real dactyls, trochees, or what not, because of the 
nominal identity thus brought about, and are to be supposed 
capable of being put through exactly the same paces. A 
real dactyl is a very different thing from a three-syllabled 
foot accented on the first, a real anapaest from one accented 
on the last. 

The ancient system may or may not be applicable to our 
language- — that is a point for after regard ; but this much is 
certain, we have an independent system which is not the an- 
cient, and which should not always be liable to confusion with 
it by the retention of three or four mere unmeaning appella- 
tives. 

From this digression, entered into to show cause for the 
proposed innovation, we will now return to accentual feet, and 
state what names it seems most fitting to adopt instead of the 
prosodial, henceforth to be restricted to a quantitative meaning 
only* 

For the two-syllabled foot with the accent on the close, by 
far the most predominant in the language, the term march is 
proposed instead of iambus, as indicative of the steady pace 
of verses composed in that metre. 

For feet of the same length, but with the accent on the 
first syllable, instead of trochee the term trip or tripping will 
be employed, also indicative of the peculiar pace of the metre. 

Of three-syllabled feet, that with the accent on the last in- 
stead of anapaest will be called quick, as essentially its me- 
trical characteristic wherever employed. 

With the accent on the opening syllable instead of dactyl, 
revert is suggested ; perhaps not so inappropriate as it may 
appear at first sight, but anyhow it is a foot and term which 
will trouble us little. 

As for spondee, it can have no accentual equivalent except 
with spondaic usage of weight, which makes it unnecessary to 
change the name. This foot may be dropped out of sight alto- 
gether for a season. 

These four new names — march, trip, quick, and revert — 
are surely not too much to burden the memory with, and, as 



6 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

has been shown, are neither unnecessary nor inappropriate : 
did we go on talking of iambus, trochee, anapaest, and dactyl, 
certain it is the confusion would be greater in the long run. 

Owing in a great measure to the adoption of prosodial 
names for accentual feet, it has been far too much overlooked 
of what an utterly different nature the English foot really is. 
The weight of syllable, which in Greek is everything, in Eng- 
lish is not meted at all, or only exceptionally by way of 
effect, but is left at the discretion of the poet, as we shall see 
every one of the other metric elements of verse without ex- 
ception is in turn singly dropped or brought into promi- 
nence in various metres. 

The English foot, as a foot, has regard only to the position 
of the accent: the syllables themselves are as slaves, incapable of 
self-assertion. The verse moves on with all its various tones 
perfectly unrestrained ; the regulating accent comes beating 
time at set intervals, and that is all. But the point at which 
it is wished to arrive is this — the extent to which this funda- 
mental difference affects the combinations of the feet together 
in mixed metre. 

Of the four varieties of foot described, two have the accent 
at the close, two at the beginning of it. This divides them 
into two natural classes, which tend to have their affinities 
among themselves, but are rather antagonistic one ^to the 
other. 

The former of the two classes, namely, that with the accent 
at the close of the foot, is of vastly preponderating import- 
ance, the reason of which lies in the structural peculiarities 
of the English tongue, only by a right comprehension of 
which shall we see our way without error. 

First, be it observed that much most usually the accent of a 
word of two or more syllables falls early : words accented other- 
wise are of course not rare, but few and far between in com- 
parison to the mass the other way. 

The accents, however, in their connection one among 
another tend decidedly to have the beat at the end of the 
foot. The two practices are not really opposed ; it is only in 



OUTLINES OF METRE. 7 

perfect accordance that the accent of the longer words is 
thrown early : symmetry requires this toothing into the com- 
ing word as favourable to union and variety. 

This fact of English innately leaning to that run of accents 
which places the stroke at the end of the foot, independently 
of other sources, might be gathered from the grammatical 
structure of the language itself, the unempbatic article and 
preposition coming before the noun, the pronoun and auxiliary 
before the verb, and so on throughout. These are but as 
bubbles on the stream of speech, but none the less unfailingly 
they mark its direction. 

This mode may be denominated as the forward ; the other, 
or that with the accent at the beginning of the foot, as the 
backward. 

As long as the shorter kind of feet are exclusively em- 
ployed, this distinction does not tell ; the verse is kept un- 
changeable by a strictly alternating beat ; let however a single 
three-syllabled foot be introduced, at once elective affinities 
come into play ; the verse has, as it were, its choice offered 
which run it will take, and it invariably, with one exception 
(see revert, Ch. XV.), settles it in one way by declaring for the 
forward rhythm as opposed to the backward. Thus in the 
verse — 

Silent|ly ajbove the | surface, 

there is no doubt a,bout the metre ; but in that of 
Slowly | lifting | the horn | that hung | at his side, 

instead of continuing as it begins, with the accent at the 
opening of the foot, the moment the possibility of choice is 
offered the verse, it transfers the accent to the close of the 
foot, and no return afterwards to an alternate can make the 
rhythm revert back. 

The verse may indeed be kept in the backward arrange- 
ment by force — 

Slowly | lifting the | horn that | hiing at his | side ; 
but this is an unnatural procedure, and nought but the natu- 



8 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

ral is true. Indeed, if it comes to that, and violence is to be 
done, the accent itself may as well be set aside outright. On 
this subject, in relation to the hexameter, see farther, Ch. VIT. 
A very great assistance to the metrician arises from this 
natural leaning of the English language to one particular run : 
but for its aid, it would often be perfectly arbitrary in what 
way a verse were scanned ; but this peculiarity causes all 
combinations, in spite of purposed arrangement to the con- 
trary, to resolve into feet having the accent on the last syllable, 
the initial foot or feet of course not included. To this rule 
there is but one legitimate exception, already referred to a 
little above — revert. 

The backward run rejected from the rule of metre gets 
installed on its lost throne when verse is fitted to music, as- 
serting itself there with an exclusiveness quite sovereign. 
For in music, when words are fitted to any air, every bar as 
known must begin with an accented syllable, the primary 
part of any verse that does not begin with a beat being, as it 
were, cast off. Music treats the verse in corresponding way 
to suit its purposes, that the verse when master does the 
backward rhythm, which might perhaps as appropriately be 
hence called the musical. 

Having now sufficiently discussed the foot, we will proceed 
to another question — that of pauses. 

Every verse above the length of four feet has naturally a 
break of sub-division in its course. This peculiarity is tech- 
. nically known by the name of cesura, which means cutting : 
it originates in a modification of the same rhythmic force 
which causes the primary ordering of verse into lines at all, 
the most constant and important element in metre. The 
.shorter a line, clearly the less occasion of pausing during its 
course ; and therefore lines under what may be called the 
cesural limit, that of four feet, are left untroubled by its 
influence. 

Pauses in verse are of two kinds — grammatical pauses, such 
as are found in prose marked for the most part by stops ; and 
rhythmic pauses, or cesuras, which owe their origin to the 



OUTLINES OF METKE. 9 

metre. In verse these for the most part coincide, though 
not always. Khythmic needs obliging the cesura to occur 
where there is no grammatical pause expressed is the most 
frequent cause of their divergence, not any natural antagonism 
between the two. 

Cesuras may be classed into two varieties — the fixed, or 
those that fall in settled places ; and the less forceful, though 
equally important, which ring the changes up and down the 
line. 

The final pause at the end of every verse is a fixed cesura, 
and the most important of any. When no stop accompanies 
this rest, it is described as the final pause of suspension, on 
account of a suspension of voice being the mode of denoting 
it under such circumstances. 

Language in general is interspersed with little breaks, too 
slight for the comma to mark, and of these it is the cesura 
avails itself. The fixed cesura is a much more decisive pause 
than the. shifting: to make it occur as some would, between 
such close connections as substantive and adjective, prepo- 
sition and its case, or so on, is a barbarism quite unpardon- 
able, except, indeed, in the grotesque, which excuses anything, 
even the division of a word, as in Canning's rhyme of 

The tu- 
tor at the U- 
niversity of Gottingen ; 

or exceptionally between very short lines, where the ill effect 
is much modified. The lesser kind of jcesura can in a great 
measure obviate an awkward pause by its power of self- 
adjustment, and even where it cannot, being less decided, it 
is less perceptible ; that between substantive and adjective is 
even in some cases permissive, — nay, by imparting a tone 
suitable to the occasion, as in the following, even commend- 
able : — 

Where heavenly pensive 1 1 Contemplation dwells, 

And ever-musing 1 1 Melancholy reigns. 

The effect of cesura in direct relation to its fixity and cor- 



10 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

responding force is to impart a cadence, for the two members 
arising from its action bear to one another a sort of balanced 
arrangement of rise and fall. 

It is always optional in verses that have the fixed eesura, 
whether they shall be written in two short lines or one long 
one ; the w 7 ords and import are of course the same whichever 
way written, but it is by no means immaterial metrically 
whether the full or divided form be chosen, if only from the 
cadence the long verse has additionally through the accom- 
panying cesura. 

The analogy between words and verses is close in this ; the 
different aspect of monosyllables and polysyllables being an 
apt illustration of the contrast between what may be called 
single and double-membered verse. 

When the subject is light and trifling, the lesser form may 
carry the day ; when, however, it is otherwise, the longer 
seems the most befitting by far. The practice of subdivision 
carried to too great an extent has imparted an air of puerility 
to many an old ballad it does not rightly deserve, much as if 
long words were marked off into their component syllables to 
show the pronunciation. 



II 

HISTORIC. — OLD ALLITERATIVE MEASURE. 

The first species of verse found in these islands since English 
began to be constituted is identical in structure with that of 
the Anglo-Saxons, depending solely on alliteration, or the re- 
currence of accented syllables beginning with the same letter. 
Most frequently these recurrent letters were the first in the 
word, but not when the accent fell elsewhere. The general 
rule was that in the first member of the verse there should be 
two such concordances, in the corresponding member one ; but 
often the first member had but one, like the second, and some- 
times as many as three ; indeed, even in Anglo-Saxon the 



HISTORIC. — OLD ALLITERATIVE MEASURE. II 

regulation seems to have held very loosely altogether. The 
length of the members also varied very much — from four 
syllables to nine or so. 

She was brighter of her blee | ] than was the bright sun, 

Her rudd redder than the rose 1 1 that on the rise hangeth. 

Meekly smiling with her mouth, 1 1 and merry in her looks, 

Ever Zaughing for Zove 1 1 as she like would. 

And as she came by the 5anks 1 1 the Roughs each one 

They Zouted to that Zady, 1 1 and Zaid forth their branches. 

-Blossoms and 5urgens 1 1 breathed full sweete, 

-Flowers /lourished in the/rith || where she/orth stepped, 

And the #rass that was #ray 1 1 greened belive. 

If this be compared with an extract from Beowulf, the 
connexion in structure becomes at once apparent, though the 
number of syllables in the ancient are much fewer on the 
average. 

Stvaet waes stanfah 1 1 stig wisode 
6rumurn aet^aedere ; 1 1 ^uth-byrne scan 
7/eard, Aondlocen 1 1 Aring-iren scir 
Song in searwum 1 1 tha hie to sele furthum 
In hyra #ryre-#eatwum 1 1 ^angan cwomon. 

The old English example appears uncouth in our ears, but 
what is that to this ? Surely the Anglo-Saxon lyre must have 
been a gridiron, or some instrument not more tunable. 

The first great change wrought in this species of verse was 
the addition of final rhyme, as in the following, of supposed 
date about 1550 : — 

John iVobody, quoth I, what wews, thou soon wote and tell 

What wanner men thou meane, that are so mad. 

He said, These g&y gallants that will construe the 6rospel, 

As /Solomon the sage, with semblance full sad ; 

To discuss divinity they nought aJread ; 

ikfore meet it were for them to milk kine at a fleyke. 

Thou Ziest, quoth I, thou Zosel, Zike a Zewd Zad. 

He said he was little John Nobody that durst not speake. 

This double regimen did not last long, the old alliterative 
system gradually breaking up. The next example illustrates 
this transition state. 



12 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

In the third day of May to Carlisle did come 

A kind courteous child that could much of wisdom ; 

A &irtle and a mantle this child had upon. 

With brooches and rings full richly bedone. 

God speed thee, King Arthur, sitting at thy meat, 

And the goodly Queen 6ruiniver I cannot her forget. 

I tell you lords in this Aall I Mght you all to Aeed, 

Except you be the surer is you for to dread. 

He plucked out of his j?oterner and longer would not dwell, 

He gulled forth a pretty mantle between two nutshells. 

jffave thou Aere, King Arthur, Aave thou here of me, 

Give it to thy comely queen shapen as it is already. 

The literary change from alliteration to rhyme was mainly 
coeval with the Eeformation : preluded by Chaucer a century 
and a half before, even as the religious movement by 
WyclifTe, either revolution was long in becoming national 
and universal. 

Besides the mere outward change in the use of modulants, 
to which attention has been draw T n, a radical movement was 
taking place in the inner structure of the verse, which, if not 
quite so apparent, was of fully equal importance : this was 
the change from proportioning in the rough to the methodic 
reckoning by feet. 

The accents at first having been used but as vehicles for 
the alliterative letter, a certain inequality and irregularity in 
their occurrence was not undesirable; but in proportion as 
rlryme became substituted, the uncouth numbers and ine- 
qualities of old were gradually toned down. 

Early writers do not appear to have regulated the accent 
out of any other regard than the attainment of smoothness. 
Their aim appears to have been to reduce the disturbing in- 
fluence of the accent to a minimum ; and this, whether they 
would or not, could only be attained by placing the promi- 
nent syllables one remove apart. The effect of accents in 
this position was to beat time gently, without any elevations 
or depressions — a gain indeed to smoothness, but a loss to force 
and character. 

Up then started King Arthur, and sware by hill and dale, 

lie ne'er would quit that bold baron till he had made him ^uail. 



HISTORIC. — OLD ALLITERATIVE MEASURE. 13 

Go fetch my sword Excalibar, go saddle me my steed ; 

Now by my fay, that grim baron shall rue his riithful deed. 

And when he came to Tearne JFadlmg beneath the castle wall : 

i Come forth ; come forth, thou proud baron, or yield thyself my thrall.' 

Here, it is seen, the accents have become strictly alternate ; 
but not as yet is there a thorough distinction made whether 
the accent fall on the first syllable of the foot or on the 
other. 

To reckon, or as it is technically called, scan, the verse 
according to the number and position of the beats, appeared 
henceforward an obvious enough procedure. Whether or 
not suggested by a study of the Latin, the lines could be 
easily meted of any determinate length by merely allotting 
a certain number of accents to each. It was thus that English 
feet took their rise accentual from the beginning. 

There appears to have been a slight struggle in the poetic 
mind of the period under discussion, whether the old rhythmic 
structure might not survive, even though alliteration itself 
passed away. In one rare instance, that of the well-known 
song of ' The Old English Gentleman,' we have an example 
of the old rhythm intact, or what so appears, but yet con- 
joined with rhyme. If this guess be right, to estimate the 
verse by the later contrivance of regular accentual feet is 
manifestly unfair ; it must be regarded as simply having the 
run of words before required to make prominent the allitera- 
tive letter. 

An old song made by an aged old pate, 

Of an old worshipful gentleman who had a great estate, 

That kept a brave old bouse at a bountiful rate ; 

And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate ; 

Like an old courtier of the queen's, and the queen's old courtier, 

With an old lady whose anger one word assuages, 

That every quarter paid their old servants their wages, 

And never knew what belonged to coachmen, footmen, nor pages, 

But kept twenty old fellows with blue coats and badges ; 

Like an old, &c. 

With reference to this kind of metre, see more under i main/ 
Chaps. XXL and XXII. 



14 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

It now remains to treat in detail the various metres, which 
will be done on the following plan — march, trip, and quick 
severally, first unrhymed and then rhymed, the stanza forms 
subsequently apart. After that will come revert and all 
irregular and exceptional varieties, followed by examples of 
metres on other bases beside the foot. 

A chapter on the rendering of Greek measures, and a slight 
summary, will conclude the work. 



III. 

MARCH METRE. BLANK VERSE. 



It has been premised that the term march will apply to all 
measures of the alternate beat, the second syllable accented. 

Though, presumably, verses may be composed of any num- 
ber of feet in moderation, yet in pure metre, uninfluenced, 
that is, by rhyme, this is found to be anything but the case in 
practice ; one form, and one only, being of any real value for 
sustained linear use in any rhythm. In the metre before 
us that variety is of five feet, the most used of all English 
metres, that commonly styled blank verse. The term blank 
to imply unrhymed has become special to this one form, 
from its having been the earliest and for a long period the 
sole of the kind used ; perhaps, also, not without a certain 
sarcastic reflection on the metre itself. 

Simple as the verse is in primary structure, it admits many 
varieties — in one phase the verse of Milton, in another that 
of Shakspeare. 

Even about a metre so long and extensively in vogue as 
this, far from clear and correct ideas are abroad. 

In the first place there are two standing varieties of blank 
verse, perfectly distinct, and having hardly a single particu- 
larity in common. These are the epical, strict and artificial ; 
and the dramatic, free and natural. So far there is little 
difficulty in classification, but between these two varieties 



HAECH METEE. BLANK VEESE. 15 

there is what, to give a comprehensive name, may be called 
the idyllic, which, as its nature inclines one way or other, 
partakes of the characteristics of both. 

Variation operates upon the verse through four channels : 
regularity or otherwise of the accent; syllables additional; 
arrangement of the cesura ; and lapse of the accent. 

To give an idea of blank verse in its ordinary aspect, take 
the following from Cowper — about an average specimen of the 
way in which it is handled by most : — 

There is | in souls || a sym|pathy | with sounds, 
And as the mind is pitched 1 1 the ear is pleased 
With melting air or martial, | j brisk or grave : 
Some chord 1 1 in unison with what we hear 
Is touched within us, 1 1 and the heart replies. 
How soft the music 1 1 of those village bells, 
Falling at intervals 1 1 upon the ear 
In cadence soft, 1 1 now dying all away, 
Now pealing loud again, 1 1 and louder still, 
Clear and sonorous, 1 1 as the gale comes on. 
With easy force 1 1 it opens all the cells 
Where memory slept. 1 1 W T herever I have heard 
A kindred melody, 1 1 the scene recurs, 
And with it 1 1 all its pleasures and its pains. 

Eespecting the use of an opening accent in the line above, 
' Falling at intervals,' it may be as well to state at once that 
it is an accepted interchange throughout all verses that by 
rule would begin otherwise, and is not to be deemed an 
irregularity, for without it all such lines would open alike, 
accented on the second syllable, much too uniform to be 
pleasing. To style this usage as the strong beginning may 
perhaps be the best way of phrasing it. 

Midline the recourse to this figure, to obtain an opening 
accent, can be obviated by cesura at the half-foot. 

Since Michael and his powers went forth to tame 
These disobedient. Sore hath been their fight. 

But the form, though then somewhat irregularis not inad- 
missible even here. 

back defeated to return, 

They worse abhorred. Satan beheld their flight. 



16 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Or again : — 

Where to lie hid. Sea he had searched, and land. 

Dramatists and others use this licence without a full pause, 
or even stop at all, though not without cesura, for that can- 
not be obviated. 

To be, or not to be, that is the question. 
Long lines of cliff breaking had left a chasm. 
Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time. 
To pay the petty debt twenty times over. 

This constitutes the first form of variation : to go on then 
to the second, or the change wrought by additional syllables. 
Tennyson uses such lines as 

The prettiest little damsel in the port — 

To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair — 

Many a sad kiss, by day, by night, renewed. 

But in the epic, a long narrative poem of an elevated 
character, additional syllables are rarely or never added, 
except under the figure of what is called elision; that is, 
where one vowel, mostly final, is supposed to cut off before 
another. 

He ended, and his words their drooping cheer 

Enlightened, and their languished hopes revived. 

The mvention all admired, and each how he 

To be the mventor missed : so easy it seemed, 

Once found, which yet unfound, most would have thought 

Impossible. 

The author of ' Paradise Lost' adopted this practice in 
imitation of the ancients, but whether he meant it to extend 
to actual pronunciation is another question. Certainly in one 
instance above, ' so easy it seemed,' such an opinion cannot 
be entertained : why then suppose it in others ? Should we 
not rather acknowledge a quick foot of smooth utterance, as in 

Throws his steep flight in many an aery whirl, 

where surely every syllable is expressive, and to be expressed ? 
But be it remarked that the reason why the melody of this 



MARCH METRE. BLANK VERSE. 17 

verse is of a superior kind is simply because the elision 
passes unperceived — small praise this to the figure of elision 
itself, simply showing that it is to vowel syllables added on 
and pronounced, not to any cut out, that the praise is due. 

Two vowels meeting in adjoining syllables do not suffer 
offence in English unless sung : witness the opening words of 
the quotation above, ' He ended.' To slur away one vowel 
before another is, as a rule, inadmissible in speech, and to 
arrange metrically as if it could occur a consequent blemish. 
To insert a foot of three syllables, where one of two is ex- 
pected, is a tacit assumption that such a foot can be pro- 
nounced in equivalent time, and tends to force an elided 
utterance, if in such an unfortunate situation the chance be 
offered. There may be a doubt as to which is most un- 
pleasant, yielding to the tendency, or withstanding it, none 
whatever as to its general ill effects. 

To point to the Latin as authority on this subject is idle. 
With an accented pronunciation elision is intolerable in that 
tongue too, and may have been even to the Eomans for 
aught we can tell, though fashion made it go down, as to a 
certain extent with ourselves. 

A vowel should never be cut out unless a word is thoroughly 
pronounceable without it- The word ' heaven ' is not so 
without the second e : in verse, then, it must count as a dis- 
syllable, however written. For the ill effects of supposing the 
contrary, see, with other remarks of the kind in quick verse 
where it concerns, Ch. VII. towards the end. 

To cut out a consonant, on the other hand, often resolves 
a difficulty in pronunciation, not creates one; the use of 
i'the, o'the, to wit, for s in the,' ' of the,' like o'er for over. 
Also the colloquiasms ' 'tis ' and ' 'twas ' may have something 
said for them as useful realities ; but about a practice that 
would transform Ho highest' into 't'ighest,' there is no need 
to enlarge further. 

Decisively elision in English, on whatever principle ex- 
plained, by whatever great name backed, is to be systemati- 
cally avoided ; for, to say the least, there is no beauty in it, 



18 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

and occasional unavoidability is its only excuse. ( The 9 is the 
only word with which the liberty should ever be taken, and 
the seldomer with that the better. 

All alterations of words, such as yon for yonder, o'er for 
over, av'rice for avarice (bad), declar'st for declarest, with 
i'the, aforesaid, may be set down as poetic forms or licence ; 
but mere suppression of such letters as e mute in display'd 
or in inspir'd, mere changes to the eye, are both absurd and 
id]e as poetic peculiarities, not but that some phonetic refor- 
mation of English spelling is much needed. 

In such a form as Cowper's, before given, ' where memory 
slept,' nothing seems gained by suppressing the o in memory, 
though it is an instance where the choice lies open. 

Dramatists, not considering it incumbent on them to sup- 
port a stately regularity, are altogether more free and easy in 
their style. An essential point is the admission of an extra 
odd syllable at the end of the line. In the highest class this 
is often the principal difference as far as syllables are con- 
cerned. 

To be or not to be, that is the question : — 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
And by opposing end them ? — to die — to sleep — 
No more ;— and by a sleep, to say we end 
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummafo'ow 
Devoutly to be wished. 

The principle on which this usage may be accounted for 
appears to be, that, as only the number of accents, or at least 
of accentual places, are counted, this addition is metrically of 
little or no moment, thrown in ; its bearing not so much that 
of anything added, as closely enclitic to the last word and 
accent it is entailed to. The name odd syllable over, or sim- 
ply odd-over, will be sufficient to designate this custom for 
after reference. Uncouth if the proposed term be, it is surely 
outdone in this respect by the Greek term it is meant to 
supplant — hypercatalectic. 



MARCH METRE. — BLANK TERSE. 19 

Without the freedom this usage permits, all the verses end 
alike on an accent, and from the nature of the language this 
at the same time tends to restrict the last word to a mono- 
syllable with much too great frequency. 

At present this freedom is strictly confined to the drama- 
tists, but there is no reason why pursuers of any but the 
most exalted vein should not enjoy the same advantage. 
Why, as a general rule, the same argument against too 
great uniformity should not hold good for the needful vari- 
ation of the close of verses as for that of the opening, let 
those who set rule above reason make manifest. 

It is imperative that nothing added thus beyond measure 
should be in the least degree weighty or significant. If not 
a final syllable of no moment, then such trifles as 6 him ' or 
6 me ' at their lowest. 

The best and most commendable way of quickening blank 
verse by an interior syllable of any substantiality, and with 
no reference to elision, is, as it were, to repeat at cesura the 
procedure just instanced at the end of the line. 

— Possess it merely. That it should come to this. 

— Let me not think on't. Frailty, thy name is woman. 

— Better leave undone, than by our deed acquire. 

Here, by acting as if the measure began again at the break 
with the strong beginning, while in reality there was the pre- 
vious enclitic syllable remaining over from the first member, 
the additional syllable has, as it were, two feet in which to settle 
down, to the manifest preservation of steadiness. 

An evident reflection cannot but arise from this in support 
of the allowability generally of the odd syllable over at the 
end of the line, and a further argument for regarding always 
a syllable in such position as enclitic to the preceding foot, 
with the closing word of which it either forms part or is 
inseparably connected. 

The syllable thus gained is sometimes in the first member, 
as — 

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead — 
— Her people out upon her j and Antony. 
C 2 



20 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Even besides this, there is no place where the dramatists 
do not occasionally add a syllable of light weight — 

Why not by the hand, Sir ? How have I offended ? 
And am fallen out with my more headier will. 
Go tell the duke and his wife, 111 speak to them. 

Earely two in one line : — 

Where should this music be, iHhe air or the earth ? 

The following is about as free a passage of the kind as any 
in Shakspeare : — 

Admired Miranda ! 
Indeed the top of admiration ; worth 
What's dearest to the world ! Full many a lady 
I have eyed with best regard ; and many a time 
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage 
„ Brought my too diligent ear : for several virtues 
Have I loved several women ; never any 
With so full soul, but some defect in her 
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, 
And put it to the foil. But you, you, &c. 

As a whole, among the dramatists, there is less irregularity 
arising from additional syllables than might perhaps have 
been expected. The following, however, from Massinger, is 
an extreme case, where it is seen that the remove from prose 
is of the slightest nature. 

I find in my counting-house a manor pawned — 

Pawned, my good lord ; Lacy manor, and that manor 

From which you have the title of a lord, 

An it please your lordship ! You are a nobleman ; 

Pray you pay in my moneys : the interest 

Will eat faster in't than aquafortis in iron. 

Now though you bear me hard, I love your lordship. 

I grant your person to be privileged 

From all arrests ; yet there lives a foolish creature 

Called an under sheriff, who being well paid, will serve 

An extent on lord's or lown's land. Pay it in : 

I would be loth your name should sink, or that 

Your hopeful son, when he returns from travel, 

Should find you, my lord, without land. You are angry 

For my good counsel : look you to your bonds ; had I known 



MARCH METRE. BLANK YERSE. 21 

Of your coming, believe % I would have had Serjeants ready. 
Lord, how you fret ! but that a tavern's near, 
You should taste a cup of muscadine in my house, 
To wash down sorrow ; but there it will do better : 
I know you'll drink a health to me. 

For the words to be jumped down anyhow into fives seems 
here to have been held sufficient. To apply the term dra- 
matic use to this is hardly fair, seeing that neither Shakspeare 
nor the best writers of a later day countenance any such ex- 
treme licence. The metre is perhaps as strict as the subject 
demands, but the point is whether confessed prose would not 
have been better, after Shakspeare's manner, where the tone is 
not sufficiently elevated for verse. 

To go on now to cesura. 

The pauses of a verse almost as much affect its tone as does 
the nature of the feet, having specific qualities of expression. 
A line without a stop at the end gives a sort of sustention ; an 
unbroken line with final pause a sense of way and easement ; 
a succession of such lines additionally so. Anew subject be- 
gun late in the line gives a sort of catch to the breath, more 
especially if carried over into the next line without a stop ; 
indeed, any pause near the end or beginning of a line has 
something impressive, but only in proportion as it is seldom 
employed. Take the following from Tennyson's ' Tithonus ' in 
exemplification of these remarks, where the pauses used are 
in perfect accordance with the sentiment sought to be con- 
veyed : — 

Alas, 1 1 for this grey shadow ! 1 1 Once a man 
So glorious in his beauty, 1 1 and chy choice, 
Who madest him thy chosen, 1 1 that he seemed 
To his great heart 1 1 none other than a god ! 
I asked thee, 1 1 i Give me immortality.' 
Then didst thou grant mine asking || with a smile, 
Like wealthy men 1 1 who care not how they give. 
But thy strong Hours 1 1 indignant worked their wills, 
And beat me down, 1 1 and marred, ] | and wasted me, 
And though they could not end me, 1 1 left me maimed, 
To dwell in presence 1 1 of immortal youth, 
Immortal age 1 1 beside immortal youth, 



22 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

And all I was in ashes. 1 1 Can thy love, 

Thy beauty make amends, 1 1 tho' even now, 

Close over us, 1 1 the silver star thy guide, 

Shines in those tremulous eyes 1 1 that fill with tears 

To hear me ? 1 1 Let me go : 1 1 take back thy gifts : 

Why should a man desire 1 1 in any way 

To vary 1 1 from the kindly race of men, 

Or pass beyond 1 1 the goal of ordinance, 

Where all should pause, 1 1 as is most meet for all ? 

Some lines, it is seen, have two pauses ; but it may be every- 
where noted that in this metre the strength of the cesura 
corresponds with the force of the stop — indeed, that in lines 
without any stop at all it is sometimes almost of doubtful po- 
sition ; witness the sixth above. 

Kespecting the pause at the end of the line, that, as else- 
where said, is a fixed cesura ; and a most important distinction 
arises between having a stop at this point or suspension only, 
for on it depends the whole connection of the lines one with 
another, and a deal of the expression of the poem. 

Milton inclines to put his longest pauses elsewhere than at 
the end of a line, except on conclusion of a paragraph ; and 
such practice tends to elevation and pomp of style. But were 
his sentences not in themselves elevated and swelling, were 
they short and concise so that the long stops came oftener 
and were more thorough, such a practice kept up would have 
a forced air intolerable. Homer's short statements could not 
be so arranged, and with judgment Lord Derby in his trans- 
lation has not attempted it, but rightly followed a less elabo- 
rate style. 

Milton proceeds on one even note throughout, and his 
example may be taken as the highest consummation of arti- 
ficial arrangement. 

To tabulate : 59 of his first 100 lines are carried over, 
vastly beyond the amount an ordinary writer could venture 
on ; 11 lines only close with a full stop or colon, 1 with a 
semicolon. The same kinds of stop midline are respectively 
11 and 10. Altogether the pauses throughout are varied as 
much as possible, no regard being held superior or even equal 



MARCH METRE. BLANK TERSE. 23 

to that of setting them, turn and turn about, at due dis- 
tances. 

Unfortunately, as occasionally happens in other things, the 
artificial is not at the same time in all respects the natural : 
where the pauses do not wait on the expression, but the ex- 
pression on the pauses, the perspicuity and evolution of the 
sentence, as might be expected, sometimes prove to a certain 
extent the sufferers. 

The line, as a whole, it should not be overlooked, func- 
tionates as a proportional as well as its parts ; but the unity of 
the line in blank verse is impaired in effect in the degree it 
is more slightly told off. The pause of suspension, though it 
indeed sufficiently marks the close of a verse, yet is by its 
very nature delaying ; by a too great repetition of it the 
movement in this measure becomes tedious in the extreme. 
An appeal to Virgil's use with the hexameter does not lie 
fair, for both that is a quick metre and has a settled cadence 
to mark the run. 

Be it understood this is not spoken as a condemnation of 
Milton: the object in view is merely to chart the track with 
all shallows, sunken rocks, lee shores, and the rest of it. If 
the author of Paradise Lost has triumphed despite such ob- 
stacles, so much the more credit to his genius ; but these 
rocks certainly beset the narrows through which he steered, 
as many a bold navigator has found to his cost since. 

The last count still remains to be disposed of — that regard- 
ing lapse of the accent. 

Each foot by its constitution is supposed to have a beat, 
but as a matter of fact in many cases this is more nominal 
than real. Of such a verse as the one — 

And feed upon the shadow of perfection, 

how is it possible to say that the fourth foot has any accent 
at all ? How, again, that the second and third have in this? 

To images of the maj estic past. 
This subject is intimately connected with what has been 



24 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

said before of the use of elision by Milton, and of occasional 
three-syllabled feet by all writers. It was mainly from the 
desire of obviating the dubious foot, from the striving to as- 
sure a capable syllable for each beat, that they took refuge in 
the other form of irregularity. In this piece, taken at ran- 
dom from Paradise Lost, Milton's endeavours to assure to each 
foot a true beat as often as possible will appear : — 

Hell heard the insufferable noise ; Hell saw 
Heaven ruining from heaven, and would have fled 
Affrighted ; but strict Fate had cast too deep 
Her dark foundations, and too fast had bound. 
Nine days they fell, confounded Chaos roared. 
And felt tenfold confusion in their fall 
Through his wild anarchy ; so huge a rout 
Incumbered him with ruin. Hell at last 
Yawning received them whole, and on them closed r 
Hell their fit habitation, fraught with fire 
Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain. 
Disburdened Heaven rejoiced, and soon repaired 
Her mural breach,, returning whence it rolled. 

Here, and throughout the whole poem, though the short- 
coming be not entirely obviated, yet it is to the utmost extent 
the language will allow. A second accent is supposed on 
polysyllables, as * insufferable,' ' unquenchable ; ' one also on 
such slight words as ' and,' 'on,' 'in, 5 on the rare occasions 
when they usurp the situation. 

The gist of the matter is that in reading we feel bound to 
supply some accentual stress even on the unsupplied places. 
Let this be impressed, for it will be found in no other 
variety than the dignified and formal, peculiar in fact to 
the epic. 

Compare this extract from Milton with those from the 
drama given previously, and note the difference in this re- 
spect ; compare it also with the extract from Tennyson. The 
line from the latter now — 

To his great heart none other than a god, 

receives no accent on such a capable word as 'than,' which 
is surely a tendency the contrary way. 



MARCH METRE. — BLANK TERSE. 25 

Mark, too, the rapidity of utterance which accompanies the 
dramatic as opposed to the epic use, particularly in the very 
lines with the fewer accents. From this it appears that with 
still less restraint there would be a gain in liveliness further. 
Not the actual number of accents makes the essential differ- 
ence, however, but the pitch of the subject in a different ke)^ 
which in the stricter makes the accents direct the verse ; in 
the freer, differentiates them to the expression, more after the 
manner of ordinary speech. 

The more thorough way is not to scout this foot of mere 
accentual place, but give it its due, like any other determinate 
form, and turn it to the best account. The name proposed 
for it is the hover, as expressive of the unsettlement of the 
beat. 

The knowledge of the different rhythmic movement which 
characterises the epic and the dramatic may supply us with a 
reason beyond that of barren regularity why the odd syllable 
over should be excluded from the former class ; its disturbing 
influence would be very likely to upset the solemn sedateness 
which constitutes the claim of blank verse to dignity. The 
metrical division of few verses is so complete that the fore- 
going does not reflect on what comes after ; a syllable over 
measure at the end of one verse necessarily quickens the 
opening of the next. The hover and the odd-over in blank 
verse are natural allies : where either is freely admitted, the 
other is with difficulty excluded. 

The differentiation of the accent thus occurring is in reality 
equivalent to compounding the dramatic verse of different 
feet. In fact, in the drama, where any passion is shown, the 
feet, if not altogether transformed, are, as it were, fused into 
a totality and recast in utterance. Let any one declare if the 
same pronunciation accompany these verses in Hamlet, a 
tragedy, to what there would were they found in Paradise 
Lost, an epic. The difference of rhythm is most marked, the 
foot ordering quite put out of sight : — 

heat, dry up my brains ! tears, seven times salt, 
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye ! — 



26 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION, 

By Heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight 
Till our scale turn the beam. rose of May ! 
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia ! — 
heavens ! is't possible a young maid's wits 
Should be as mortal as an old man's life ? 

Singularly enough, the drama is precisely the point in 
which abettors of classic metres, as having their counterparts 
in English, deem themselves most firmly intrenched, the sup- 
posed affinity between modern and ancient being here deemed 
clearly established. The resemblance, however, is more ap- 
parent than real ; for iambic, or march metre, or whatever the 
designation, can only be applied to the free form of blank 
verse on sufferance. 

The accents in blank verse regular, being placed alter- 
nately, are much nearer than their occasional, perhaps even 
than their average position in prose. Now the force of an ac- 
cent greatly depends upon its distance from its neighbour, so 
that a regular' succession of alternate accents must be far less 
forceful than the highest flights of prose. Understand, the 
rhythmic mechanism inherent to verse of all kinds will impart 
a kind of elevation and dignity that the prose does not possess ; 
but still the result will be accentually weaker. The dramatic 
Pegasus takes this curb between his teeth in spirited mo- 
ments, which in a great degree makes up for the shortcoming. 

It is here lies the true root of difference between the two 
extremes of blank verse ; occasional quick feet are as nothing 
to it ; for except in the degree they tend to bring about the free 
rhythm, they rank but as irregularities, good or bad, accord- 
ing to effect. 

In spite of the great example of Milton and others, it can- 
not be admitted that blank verse has all the requirements 
necessary to a perfect epical metre. 

It stands to reason that a measure that has everything 
ruled for it cannot be very expressional, while the movement 
is the slowest to which, under any circumstances whatever, 
verse or prose, the English language can be reduced. The 
strong beginning is too trite to be of account ; the extreme 
cesuras have lost effect by being used in common ; an occa- 



MAKCH METEE, RHYMED. 27 

sional quick foot rather disturbs than enlivens. What is 
there left ? Nothing but the capital to be made out of the 
varying weight of syllables, which if in any metre it is of no 
account at all, it is this. 

As to the propriety of writing an epic in the free form, it 
is true that in passages where the greatest elevation is attained 
the verse seems naturally to refrigerate into the stiff, regularly 
accentual form ; but to strain at such everywhere alike with- 
out deviation is to drop all elasticity. Lamented Keats, in 
his unfinished poem of Hyperion, is a standing witness to the 
success of a more differential handling ; without his indulg- 
ing in any additional syllables, yet with admissible hover and 
unstrained pauses, to read him is a pleasure. His practice, 
then, seems a good model for such as may not elect to go to 
the very verge with Milton in all totality. Whatever course 
be pursued in poems of the more ambitious cast, yet in the 
idyllic, &c, particularly if of the domestic kind, where epical 
dignity is neither reached nor even aimed at, there seems no 
good reason for abstaining from any of the licence assumed 
by the playwright ; indeed, such in reason is recommended. 



MARCH METRE, RHYMED. 



Ehtme, the well-known figure in verse, is the occurrence of 
two syllables similar in sound from the accented point on- 
wards, as sings wings, found rebound, engage rage ; or as 
nation temptation, gladder sadder, called for distinction 
double rhyme, or witticism criticism triple. 

However, as a genuine rhyme is not always forthcoming, 
resources have been eked out by mere resemblance in spell- 
ing, where this by no means represents the sound, as bear 
near, dialogue rogue, come home, or even by certain approxi- 
mations, such as beheld field, road god, join confine, bear 
car — all in Pope. 

The use of rhyme in verse is not, as commonly supposed, 



28 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

altogether for the mere clink thence resulting, but in the 
additional facility it affords of marking time. With rhyme 
for guide, the ear may follow inwoven lines with the utmost 
ease and certainty, while again the verses themselves marked 
off more decisively, having at the end instead of a mere cesural 
pause, which the attention in some measures (blank verse, 
for instance) is taxed to observe, a recurrent sound we hasten 
to arrive at, derive such a vigour and liveliness that the metre 
is no longer recognisable for the same. A closer considera- 
tion of rhyme, its nature and qualities, is deferred to a subse- 
quent chapter apart. 

The movement of rhymed measures being strictly regular, 
that is, having no tendency at all to differentiation, it is 
desirable that the accentual place should always be occupied 
by a syllable capable of receiving the beat ; as this cannot 
exactly be, like in epic blank verse, a certain approximation 
is made suffice. 

In treating the various forms of march metre rhymed, the 
first thing that most strikes the observation is the innume- 
rable number of varieties met with, in place of the solitary 
if many-sided individualism just discussed. 

In this chapter, not to make confusion, will be cited only 
such forms as are or might be used continuously in a poem 
of moderate length, without being divided into stanzas. It 
is true that many of the examples given might just as legiti- 
mately be written in lengths, and then called stave or stanza; 
distinction at this stage is but one to the eye at most, so it is 
deemed best to cite the most prominent forms here, where they 
can best be grouped. 

Ehymed lines occur of all lengths, from even one and two 
feet, but only in stanzas with others of greater length ; even 
lines of three feet hardly have a more independent existence, 
being preferably written in sixes, as, for instance, Words- 
worth's ' Pet Lamb,' though, the piece being so simple, either 
way is equally suitable. 

The dew was falling fast, 
The stars began to blink ; 



MARCH METRE, RHYMED. 29 

I heard a voice, it said, 
Drink, pretty creature, drink ! 
And looking o'er the hedge, 
Before me I espied 
A snow-white mountain lamb/ 
"With a maiden at its side. 

Next, the four-foot couplet is a form that has been much 
used even for the longest poems, Butler's ' Hudibras,' for 
instance : — 

A squire he had, whose name was Ralph, 

That in the adventure went his half: 

Though writers, for more stately tone, 

Do call him Ralpho ; 'tis all one j 

And when we can with metre safe, 

We'll call him so ; if not, plain Ralph : 

For rhyme the rudder is of verses, 

By which, like ships, they steer their courses. 

An equal stock of wit and valour 

He had laid in ; by birth a tailor. 

Four -foot quatrain. — This, as well as all alternate 
arrangements, has a much greater tendency to be used 
in short pieces, ballads, odes, &c, than the couplet. 

To fair Fidelie's grassy tomb 

Soft maids and village hinds shall bring 
Each opening sweet of earliest bloom, 

And rifle all the breathing spring. 
No wailing ghost shall dare appear, 

To vex with shrieks this quiet grove \ 
But shepherd lads assemble here, 

And melting virgins own their love. 
No wither' d witch shall here be seen, 

No goblins lead their nightly crew ; 
But female fays shall haunt the green, 

And dress thy grave with pearly dew. — Collins. 

Wherever rhymes are thus alternated, it may be remarked 
that the first and third closes should not approach in sound 
the second and fourth ; the effect is discordant. The like 
applies to all interchanges of rhyme, whatever the arrange- 
ment. Verses of four feet are still more often alternated 



30 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

with others of three, and rhymed to match, constituting, when 
written in short staves of four lines, the usual way, what is 
commonly known as the ballad measure ordinary. This 
form has perhaps had more practisers than any in the lan- 
guage. Very frequently, as here, the leading lines are left 
unrhymed : — 

A second stroke so stiff and stern 

Hath laid the savage low ; 
But springing up he raised his club, 

And aimed a dreadful blow. 
The watchful warrior bent his head, 
And shunned the coming stroke ; 
Upon his taper spear it fell, 
And all to shivers broke. 
Then lighting nimbly from his steed, 

He drew his burnished brand : 
The savage quick as lightning flew 
To wrest it from his hand. 

The rhymes need not follow the arrangement of the verse, 
though such is the almost universal practice ; they may pro- 
ceed, as in the following couplet rhyme, the length of lines 
alternating: — 

Italia, by the passion of the pain 

That bent and rent thy chain ; 
Italia, by the breaking of the bands, 

The shaking of the lands ; 
Beloved, men's mother, men's queen, 

Arise, appear, be seen ! 
Arise, array thyself in manifold 

Queen's raiment of wrought gold. — A. Swinburne. 

French La Fontaine has shown a great partiality for this 
mode, where those that list may see its working in lines of the 
most varied length and arrangement. 

Next the five-foot couplet, a most important variety, com 
monly called for distinction the heroic, from the great use once 
made of it for compositions of the more ambitious kind, epic 
and other. This measure has been immortalized by the 
genius of Pope and Dryden, and a whole galaxy of lesser stars, 
only outshone by those two great luminaries. 



MARCH METRE, RHYMED. 31 

But Pallas now Tydides' soul inspires, 

Fills with her force, and warms with all her fires, 

Above the Greeks his deathless fame to raise, 

And crown her hero with distinguished praise. 

High on his helm celestial lightnings play, 

His beamy shield emits a living ray ; 

The unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies, 

Like the red star that fires the autumnal skies. 

When fresh he rears his radiant orb to sight, 

And bathed in ocean shoots a keener light. 

Such glories Pallas on the chief bestowed, 

Such from his arms the fierce effulgence glowed : 

Onwards she drives him furious to engage, 

Where the fight burns, and where the thickest rage. — Pope. 

First, now we have overpassed the limit of four feet, cesura 
becomes a point to be attended to. 

In verses of this sort the pause is by no means of that ab- 
struseness and variety which constitute so important a feature 
in blank verse, its fall being generally limited to the third 
foot, either at the actual centre or only one syllable off; that 
is, immediately after the fourth, fifth, or sixth syllable. 

To instance these three positions : — 

Trembling and pale, 1 1 he starts with wild affright, 
And all confused 1 1 precipitates his flight. 

As godlike Hector 1 1 sees the prince retreat, 
He thus upbraids him, 1 1 with a generous heat. 

Then let a midway space 1 1 our hosts divide, 
And on that stage of war 1 1 the cause be tried. 

But by no means is the position always the same in one 
line of a couplet as in the other : — 

Thus, by their leader's care, | j each martial band 
Moves into ranks, | ] and stretches o'er the land. 
With shouts the Trojans, || rushing from afar, 
Proclaim their motions, 1 1 and provoke the war. 
So when inclement winters 1 1 vex the plain 
With piercing frosts, 1 1 or thick descending rain, 
To warmer seas 1 1 the cranes embodied fly 
With noise, and order, 1 1 through the midway sky. 

Cesuras in the other positions than the three cited, though 



32 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

rare comparatively, are by no means unusual ; indeed, the 
approved pauses, though more pleasing individually, would 
soon become tedious if persistently adhered to. 
Instances of the other positions : — 

The immortals slumbered on the thrones above, 
All, 1 1 but the ever- wakeful eyes of Jove. 

Swift as the word the vain illusion fled, 
Descends, 1 1 and hovers o'er Atrides' bead. 

Yet while my Hector still survives, 1 1 I see 
My father, mother, brethren, all in tbee. 

So spoke the fair, nor knew her brother's doom, 
Wrapt in the cold embraces 1 1 of the tomb. 

These forms, except the last, never occur without a coin- 
cident stop. 

An early cesura is often accompanied by a late one : — 

O Argives, 1 1 shame of human race, 1 1 be cried, 
The hollow vessels to his voice replied. 

An instance of completing the sense of one couplet early 
in the next is in Pope almost unique in its unfrequency ; the 
effect of such an exceptional course is most marked. 

From steep to steep the rolling ruin bounds ; 
At every shock the crackling wood resounds ; 
Still gath'ring force, it smokes, and urged amain, 
Whirls, leaps, and thunders down, impetuous to the plain, 
There stops — So Hector. Their whole force he proved, 
Resistless when he raged ; and when he stopped unmoved. 

Many writers, however, more freely carry over the sense of 
one couplet into the next, than Pope does even between the 
single lines of the pairs themselves. 

This measure, as used by Dryden, had often a six-foot line 
intermingled, particularly at a close, till Pope put the prac- 
tice somewhat out of fashion in his ' Essay on Criticism.' 
The fourth and sixth lines of his above are instances, also the 
fifth following. 

The couplet is also occasionally varied by a triplet, though 
very rarely. 



MARCH METRE, RHYMED. 

For Tydeus left me young, when Thebe's wall 
Beheld the sons' of Greece untimely fall. 
Mindful of this, in friendship let us join; 
If heaven our steps to foreign lands incline, 
My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine. 
Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield, 
In the full harvest of yon ample field. 

The introduction of weak syllables in accentual position is 
regulated on these principles. 

An available position can only occur before cesura when 
three complete feet precede ; for the line cannot open weak, 
nor can a weak accent immediately precede the break : it can 
only fall therefore between these two : — 

The spirit of a god 1 1 my breast inspire. 

Of positions after the cesura, the emphasis falls strong on 
the first complete foot after the break : the least emphatic 
position, and therefore the most proper to select, is then the 
next that follows : — 

Yet hear one word, and lodge it in thy heart. 

Or if a place intervene between the cesura and the com- 
plete foot, that may be made available equally : — 

If yet forgetful | j of his promise given, 
Then sighing, | [ to the deep his looks he cast. 

Five-foot quatrain.— The alternate variety of five feet has 
met with many and illustrious supporters ; but, as with the 
similar form of four feet, mostly in poems of no great length. 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, 
The ploughman homewards plods his weary way, 

And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 

And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. — Gray. 

The following is an imitation of Dante's verse ; a new rhyme 
always beginning before the close of the old, there being three 

D 



34 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

of a sort occurring alternately, the chain of rhyme is continu- 
ous — hence chain-rhyme might serve as its appellation. It is 
as if the verses were in triplets, and the mean of one trio be- 
came the extreme of the next. No original poem has been 
written in English in this measure : — 

About the middle of life's onward way, 
I found myself within a darksome dell, 
Because from the true path I went astray. 
Alas ! how hard a thing it is to tell 
Of that dark wood so rugged and so bare ; 
Anew I fear when there in thought I dwell. 
Scarce death itself more bitterness doth wear. 
Yet to make known the good which thus I found, 
Now all my sorrows shall my tale declare. 
I know not how I came within its bound ; 
Such heavy slumbers on mine eyelids weighed, 
The while I entered the forbidden ground. 
But when I near a mountain's foot was stayed, 
Hard by the ending of the Tale, which now 
With such sharp terror all my heart affray ed. 

Mus. Kamsay. 

The next is an instance of blank verse arrangement in union 
with couplet rhyme, this latter being, as it were, supernume- 
rary, not controlling the movement of the verse in the least : — 

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever : 

Its loveliness increases ; it will never 

Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep 

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 

Therefore on every morrow are we wreathing 

A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 

Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways 

Made for our searching : yes, in spite of all, 

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 

From our dark spirits. — Keats. 

The following is an example of the same length line, treated 
with regard to its pauses and construction like blank verse, 
hut still rhymed at irregular distances : — 



RHYMED. 35 

My life was at its end — I died ; 

My last fond prayer was breathed to heaven for him, 

And God had mercy on me ; I was sent 

To yonder star, where happiest spirits bide 

In sunshine everlasting, and in bliss 

Whose heavenly splendour never may grow dim. 

Then came the sadness of my discontent. 

On earth I knew not what was false or true, 

But lived in dazzling mist like millions do ; 

Thinking what men call good was very good — 

Alas ! the word 's on earth misunderstood ; 

And then I knew my lover was misled 

Like others, placing- his sole happiness 

In what was truly evil, &c. — E. Kenealy. 

Six-foot — The couplet of this length was used by Drayton 
and Chapman for the same purpose as the heroic verse, which 
later drove it out of fashion. It forms a measure with an 
ancient quaintness somewhat rude : — 

But when the approaching foes still following; he perceives 

That he his speed must trust, his usual walk he leaves ; 

And o'er the champain flies ; which when the assembly find, 

Each follows, as his horse were footed with the wind. 

But being then imbost, the noble stately deer, 

When he hath gotten ground (the kennel cast arrear), 

Doth beat the brooks and ponds for sweet refreshing soil ; 

That serving not, then proves if he his scent can foil, 

And makes among the herds and flocks of shag-wooled sheep, 

Them frighting from the guard of those who would them keep. 

Drayton. 

Note here the difference between the pause of sense and the 
pause of rhythm. In the first line the sense requires a stop 
at ' following,' the rhythm would place it at ' foes,' and at the 
end of the line. Again, in the fourth verse, the stop after the 
word ' follows ' is almost disregarded, the real cesura occurring 
mid-line after ' horse. 5 The like observation may be made 
in the eighth line. 

In five-foot verse there is no divergence between the cesura 
and stop, the pause in sense coinciding with the other, and 
indeed determining its position ; but here, owing to the greater 
length of line, the rhythmic force has become so much stronger 

D 2 



36 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

that the sentential pause must conform more to the rhythmic, 
or suffer for it by partial or total neglect in pronunciation. 

Seven-foot is the longest form of march metre ever found, 
and that but rarely, it being commonly divided into the ballad 
form of four and three, already given. As used by Chapman 
in his translation of the Iliad, this measure would seem obso- 
lete ; but so much depends on the handling that in Macaulay's 
6 Armada ' it seems as modern as any : — 

The king is come to marshal us in all his armour drest, 

And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest. 

He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 

He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high. 

Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing, 

Down all our line, a deafening shout, God save our lord the king. 

' And if our standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may, 

For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, 

Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war ; 

And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre/ 

It is perhaps advisable to give a few instances of the use of 
double rhyme, as it modifies the expression of the verse con- 
siderably, adding to it a syllable over measure. Even inde- 
pendently of rhyme, this feature is always noticeable : — 

Come ye so early, 

Days of delight ? 
Making the hillside 

Blithesome and bright ? 

Merrily, merrily, 

Little brooks rush, 
Down by the meadow 

Under the bush. — Aytotjn. 

The odd syllable over seen to occur alternately throughout 
adds much to the quickness of the measure wherever intro- 
duced ; in so short a specimen doubly so, almost taking the 
sample out of march metre altogether into another group, for 
it is at once apparent that if the verses were written in couplet 
form, the last foot would from this cause be quick regularly. 

Couplet use of double rhyme occurring constantly is rare : — 



MARCH METRE, RHYMED. 37 

"When from our ships we bounded, 

I heard with fear astounded 

The storm of Thorgerd's making, 

From northern vapours breaking ; 

With flinty masses blended, 

Gigantic hail descended, 

And thick and fiercely rattled 

Against us there embattled. 

To aid the hostile maces, 

It drifted in our faces ; 

It drifted dealing slaughter, 

And blood ran out like water. — G. Borrow. 

The sweetness of a lyric often greatly depends on this in- 
significant particular of double rhyme, but the close of any 
verse goes for much in the mental impression : — 

Hugged in the clinging billows' clasp, 

From seaweed fringe to mountain heather, 
The British oak with rooted grasp 

Her slender handful holds together ; 
With cliffs of white and bowers of green, 

And ocean narrowing to caress her, 
And hills and threaded streams between, 

Our little Mother Isle, God bless her. 

Holmes (American). 

It is not meant to imply that this form gives sweetness, 
but that it imparts a certain heightening effect to the ground 
tone ; in the next and closing example, it is rather force and 
sublimity : — 

Lord ! who art our God, perfection's splendour, 

We bow before thy thrones of cloud and fire ; 
To thee, whose footstool are the heavens, we render 

The joy and worship that our hearts inspire. 
As leap the rills from the eternal mountains, 

As the streams seek the everflowing sea, 
As runs the fawn from the bright, cooling fountains, 

So turn our fainting spirits still to thee. — E. Kenealy. 



38 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

V. 

v TRIPPING METRE. 

Turning now to the consideration of the metre, denominated 
tripping from the pace at which it moves/ composed wholly 
of two-syllabled feet, with the accent on the first, it will be 
found much the same phenomena are repeated as in verses 
of the forward run, only on a less complete and elaborate 
scale. 

In this metre, battling up, as it were, against the stream of 
speech, the accents are endowed with a greater average of 
distinctness than in the opposite run. Nothing of the nature 
of the hover is met with, every successive step being in- 
variably accented, whether falling on words ordinarily capable 
on not. 

In the unrhymed form this metre seems to incline most 
naturally to a length of four feet, best known by Longfellow's 
admirable poem of ' Hiawatha' : — 

Downward | through the| evening | twilight, 
In the ) days that | are for | gotten, 
In the | unre | membered | ages, 
From the | full moon | fell No | komis, 
Fell the | beauti | ful No | komis, 
She a | wife, but | not a | mother. 

She was sporting with her women, 
Swinging in a swing of grape vines, 
When her rival, the rejected, 
Full of jealousy and hatred, 
Cut the leafy swing asunder, 
Cut in twain the twisted grape vines, 
And Nokomis fell affrighted 
Downward through the evening twilight, 
On the muskoday, the meadow, 
On the prairie, full of blossoms. 
See, a star falls ! said the people ; 
From the sky a star is falling ! 

This, the blank verse of the tripping metre, has a dainti- 
ness about it which is most pleasing, requiring no prophet to 



TRIPPING METRE. 39 

foretell that it is a verse of the future, even as that the 
minuets which Pope made his courtly couples dance together 
are of the past. 

Any other length besides this of four feet is very rarely 
met with ; of five feet hardly another example than the next. 
It by no means recommends itself so strongly as the shorter 
form : — 

What is yon so white beside the greenwood ? 
Is it snow, or flight of cygnets resting ? 
Were it snow, ere now it had been melted ; 
Were it swans, ere now the flock had left us. 
Neither snow, nor swans, are resting yonder, 
'Tis the glittering tents of Asam Aga. 
Faint he lies from wounds in stormy battle ; 
There his mother and his sisters seek him, 
But his wife hangs back for shame, and comes not. 

Aytoux. 

A six-foot unrhymed form would of course be practicable, 
but not being anywhere found, what shall be done or said 
about it ? — 

Poor verse slighted, six-foot baby, what a pity 
One of thy length should be hard up for existence. 
Can or not a hopeful, let us see, be fashioned 
Out of such material surely good for something ? 
I'm afraid for you, poor bantling, to speak plainly. 
O foreboding ! see where comes Sir Stern Cesura, 
Rudely claiming thee his vassal in fee simple. 
Like a grampus he hath seized thee by the wizen, 
Strangled and divided out thy skinny members 
Into little oblong dabs as dead as mutton ! 
Force — entreaties — cannot save thee ; goodbye, baby, 
Only fit to serve in sonnet to a lady, 
Thy small pigeon-toes upsticking through the crust. 

Neither is a form of seven-foot found, and would be equally 
unimportant if it were. 

Eight-foot would be simply four-foot double, and perhaps 
better left as it is ; still, to exemplify, let us arrange a bit of 
< Hiawatha :' — 



40 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

In the vale of Tawasentha, in the green and silent valley, 

By the pleasant water-courses dwelt the singer Nawadaha. 

Round about the Indian village spread the meadows and the cornfields, 

And beyond them stood the forest, stood the groves of singing pine trees, 

Green in summer, white in winter, ever sighing, ever singing. 

And the pleasant water-courses, you could trace them through the valley, 

By the rushing in the spring-time, by the alders in the summer, 

By the white fog in the autumn, by the black line in the winter, 

And beside them dwelt the singer, in the vale of Tawasentha. 



Rhymed forms of the shortest kind occur, indeed, so very 
brief that it is difficult to class them ; as this. Here, as often 
the case, the opening line is exceptional to the rest : — 

I'm out and in, 
Fetch the gin, 
Open shop, 
Squeeze the mop, 
Toast the bread, 
Make the bed, 
Gut the fish, 
Wash the dish, 
Scrub the stairs, 
Read the prayers, 
Shell the peas, 
Hunt the fleas. 

Three-foot quatrain, most suitable for songs. Last line 
exceptional in run : — 

Fill the bumper fair ! 

Ev'ry drop we sprinkle 
O'er the brow of care 

Smooths away a wrinkle. 
Wit's electric flame 

Ne'er so swiftly passes 
As when through the frame 

It shoots from brimming glasses. — T. Mooke. 

As the measurement of this metre begins with the accented 
syllable first, and the number of feet is mainly determined by 
the number of accents ; such a line as the first above, ' Fill 
the bumper fair,' in spite of the syllable wanting, may be 



TKIPPING METRE. 41 

considered as one of three feet, as it has three accents. 
Whenever, then, in this metre, the verse ends on an accent, 
it will be a syllable short of full measure, including all, in 
fact, not double-rhymed ; it may then be said to be curtailed, 
or curt 

Four-foot couplet ; not much used : — 

As it fell upon a day 

In the merry month of May, 

Sitting in a pleasant shade 

Which a grove of myrtles made, 

Beasts did leap, and birds did sing, 

Trees did grow, and plants did spring : 

Everything did banish moan, 

Save the nightingale alone : 

She, poor bird, as all forlorn, 

Leaned her breast up till a thorn, 

And there sang the dolefullest ditty, 

That to hear it was great pity. — Shakspeake. 

Four-foot quatrain. — Of comparatively frequent occur- 
rence ; but neither this, nor any of the others that follow, 
rivalling in that respect analogous forms in march metre : — 

No one failed him ! he is keeping 

Royal state and semblance still ; 
Knight and noble lie around him, 

Cold on Flodden's fatal hill. 
Of the brave and gallant-hearted, 

Whom ye sent with prayers away, 
Not a single man departed 

From his monarch yesterday. — Attouk. 

Here, as in most of the alternate arrangements of rhyming, 
it may be noticed that the first line is generally full measure, 
the second not, and so on in succession. 

Four-foot, alternated with three, equivalent to seven-foot, 
if written whole length : — 

It was Einar Tamberskelver 

Stood beside the mast ; 
From his yew bow, tipped with silver, 

Flew the arrows fast ! 



42 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Aimed at Eric unavailing, 

As lie sat concealed, 
Half behind the quarto. r-railing, 

Half behind his shield. — Longfellow. 

Five-foot alternate, a very pleasing verse, but hitherto 
much neglected : — 

Spake full well in language quaint and olden, 

One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, 
When he called the flowers so blue and golden, 

Stars that in earth's firmament do shine. 
Stars they are wherein we read our history, 

As astrologers and seers of eld ; 
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, 

Like the burning stars which they beheld. — Longfellow. 

Six-foot couplet, alias three alternate : — - 

Love with rosy fetter held us firmly bound ; 

Pure unmixed enjoyment grateful here we found. 

Bosom, bosom meeting, 'gainst our youths we pressed; 

Bright the moon arose then, glad to see us blessed. — G. Borrow. 

Seven-foot, not used, save divided into four and three ; 
already given. 

Eight-foot couplet, a superior ballad measure, suitable for 
the highest occasions ; verging on the epic : — 

In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow lands 
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands. 
Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song, 
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng ; 
Memories of the middle ages, when the emperors, rough and bold, 
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying centuries old ; 
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted in their uncouth rhyme, 
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime. 

Longfellow. 

Linear intermixture of tripping and marching measure 
often occurs, of which the following are instances. In ex- 
pression, they little differ from extracts before given, leaniug, 
of course, to that run in which are composed the majority. 

In the following they alternate, beginning with trip : — 



QUICK TERSE, UNRHYMED. CROWN. 43 

When the lamp is shattered. 

The light in the diist lies dead ; 
When the cloud is scattered, 

The rainbow's glory is shed ; 
When the lute is broken, 

Sweet tones are remembered not; 
When the lips have spoken, 

Loved accents are soon forgot. — Shelley. 

Here the intermixture occurs irregularly: — 

TO THE GRASSHOPPER. 

Happy insect ! What can be 

In happiness compared to thee ? 

Fed with nourishment divine, 

The dewy morning's gentle wine ! 

Nature waits upon thee still, 

And thy verdant cup does fill ; 

'Tis filled wherever thou dost tread, 

Nature's self thy Ganymede ! 

Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing, 

Happier than the happiest king ! 

All the fields which thou dost see, 

All the plants, belong to thee ; 

All that summer hours produce, 

Fertile made with early juice. — Cowley. 

The body of Milton's Allegro and Penseroso is in this 
mixed vein, as also one or two other of his lesser pieces. 
Except in somewhat irregular pieces, this intermixture seldom 
or never occurs in modern poems above the length of four 
feet. 



VI. 

QUICK VERSE, UNRHYMED. — CROWN. 

Hitherto attention has been confined to that class of metre 
which, whether the accent precedes or follows, does not, save 
exceptionally, overstep the limits of two syllables to the foot. 
The scene of observation is now to be enlarged, to include 



44 ENGLISH VERIFICATION. 

that of three syllables, accented on the last. Again, as before, 
the unrhymed class will be dealt with first. 

A metre wholly of three-syllabled feet is not found, ex- 
cept in short individual lines ; it is therefore with quick and 
slow feet in combination that our concern will lie. The term 
quick will then suffice still to speak of the mixed verse as a 
whole, standing for what, if named at all before, went under 
the imposing designation of iambico-anapsestic. 

There are two contrasted methods in which the different 
feet may be mingled together — that where the quick follows, 
and that where it precedes, besides, of course, certain inter- 
mediate gradations. That verse which follows one run or 
other exclusively is apt to grow wearisome after a time ; the 
style, then, in which the two can best be made to work har- 
moniously together is likely to commend itself preferably to 
acceptance. The combination which has the quick foot at the 
close naturally possesses the greater fluency ; be that, then, 
adopted as the base of procedure. 

The length that it is most fitting for the measure to assume 
to functionate properly, for it cannot be regarded as a matter 
of choice, is six-foot, odd-over or not, at will. The last foot- 
in the line will, as a rule, be quick, all the other five much 
at the discretion of the practiser, within limitations to be 
shortly specified. 

This must be regarded as the true epic or heroic form, for 
it is the culmination of the system of accentual feet; the 
name proposed for it is hence crown verse. It might be said 
this is the true hexameter, and so it is the true English re- 
presentative of the Greek verse of that name ; but hexameter, 
only meaning six-foot, every possible form of the length has 
a certain claim to that designation ; but even as commonly 
understood, there being already a claimant for the honour — 
one, too, for which another name is wanting, not coveting the 
term — let the present possessor retain it for its own, un- 
challenged ; it will serve to denominate it by. That variety 
will come on for discussion in the next chapter. 

Let us proceed now to instance the method in working : — 



QUICK VERSE, UNRHYMED. — CROWN. 45 

But oh, J Achil | les, quell | thy hot wrath ! 1 1 how ill | it behoves | one 
To have a heart quite deaf unto niercv. 1 1 Even the gods, 
Far as they are above all in virtue, honour, and power, 
Are not too high for forgiveness, ] | but when besought of a time, 
With sacrifice and with outpour, 1 1 with soothing gift and atonement, 
Will turn again to the sinner 1 1 stepped aside unto wrong. 
And Prayers, th£y are daughters 1 1 of Zeus above in the highest ; 
Wayworn and halt, 1 1 with downcast look 1 1 they follow on Evil, 
Evil who, sound-limbed and hearty, 1 1 ever outgoes them by far, 
Coursing the earth, doing harm, 1 1 which they seek to heal, coming after. 
Whoso bids welcome the lowly sisters 1 1 when they draw nigh 
Himself their helpful assistance receives 1 1 in turn at his call ; 
But if any man spurn them, 1 1 and deaf remain to the voice of their suit, 
They go and beseech their powerful father Zeus, son of Cronus, 
That fivil draw nigh to that man, 1 1 and bring him through woe to think 
better. — Iliad, ix. 492. 

Here it is seen that in the opening of nearly every line we 
find but a repetition of the usages of blank verse ; whether 
this peculiarity shall be local or general will depend on the 
user of the metre. One thing that tends greatly to produce 
this conformation is the obligation that any syllable over 
measure at the end of one line must be allowed for at the 
beginning of the next. 

From what has been said elsewhere as to four feet being 
the cesural extreme in a verse, we attain this important limi- 
tation, that, instead of having to examine all possible combi- 
nations of slow or quick feet, any number together, attention 
in that respect may be confined to the cesural limit of four, 
after which point the numbers of a member of necessity begin 
again. 

The phenomena remarked as occurring at the beginning 
and end of the above lines are found repeated with more or 
less strictness at the same points of each individual member. 
This is partly owing to the pleading tone of the given metri- 
cal specimen ; but, altogether, it may be noticed as character- 
istic of the measure that, when once the quick foot has been 
engaged, there is a greater tendency to follow ifc up with 
another of the same sort than with a slow foot till cesura 
intervenes. This may be spoken of as a tendency to the rise. 



46 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

It follows that, besides the measurement by feet, there is 
also a higher rule by components of the feet in rhythmic 
combinations or orders, counting from cesura to cesura. 
Leaving aside the question of speed, differences in this re- 
spect are the only real metrical differences made between one 
verse and another in regard to the succession of feet. It is 
of little matter which foot in the line is quick in comparison 
to which is quick in the order, and how it is succeeded. 

The following, an exalted passage, has the succession of 
feet in the order to a great degree different from the last 
specimen, the quick foot being often succeeded by a slow, 
without cesura : — 

Morning now fresh from her bed from the side of princely Tithonus 
Was rising, bringing the day-beam back to god and to man, 
When to the clustering ships of the Grecians, Zeus, son of Cronus, 
Sent forth fell Strife, uplifting the gleaming beacon of war. 
5 On the deep-hulled ship of Ulysses direful took she her stand, 
There amid host to be heard by all on both sides around, 
From the tents of Telamonian Ajax, oif unto those 
Of Achilles, heroes who in their strength and manhood a- trust 
Had their trim seafaring galleys updrawn the outmost of all. 
10 There standing, the goddess with high-pitched voice shouted out to 

the Greeks, 
Loud stirringly shouted, and set such thews in every breast 
For war and still war, that at once it became to them sweeter to 

battle, 
Than to sail back in the hollow-ribbed ships to the loved land of 

home. — Iliad j xi. 1. 

But even here the actual number of members that have 
a slow foot following on a quick one, immediately precedent 
to a cesura constituting what may be called a fall, is com- 
jjaratively few, only in the 2nd, 6th, and 10th verses, and 
none of these at the end of the line. 

Of course, the last foot may be slow occasionally as well as 
any other, though of three syllables in ordinary : — 

— A quarrel over the head of the boar and his bristly hide — 

— Over the others standing by head and by shoulders broad. — 

— Then waxed the joy of that hero like of a hungry lion — 

— And honour will keep me unmoved at the galleys, as long as breath— 

— Prayed then aloud the Grecian monarch with outstretched hands. — 



QUICK VERSE, ENKHYMED. CROWN. 47 

But verses of this kind do not seem to readily intermix in 
any numbers with the others. The extent to which they 
may be introduced is a matter of individual taste, nor need 
it be the same in all cases. The effect is hardly spondaic, 
except where, as in the last line, unusual weight of syllables 
concurs. 

The sing-song nature of this metre must, under any circum- 
stances, be very decided ; equality of membership should not 
then be too often accompanied with equality of ordering. 
Thus, with central cesura, the lines should perhaps not too 
often resemble these : — 

Swept they | as swiftly they traj versed || with spee|dy foot 'steps the 

plain. 
With lessening space | on each ojther, | ] the hosjtile arjmies advance. 

It will by no means do to proscribe such approximations 
altogether, but as they are forms more prone to occur than 
any other, it behoves to be somewhat on guard against them. 

The cesuras also require particular attention. 

As a measure of six feet, crown verse has a strong tendency 
to central division, and this withstood resolves into a leaning 
hardly less decided for a triple membership. For the chief 
cesura, falling one beat aside, is both itself somewhat weak- 
ened and tends to have a slighter cesura compensatory as a 
sort of counterpoise, early or late. This, of course, may be 
easily avoided, where advisable, by drawing close the gram- 
matical structure at one or other point. 

Another way to produce variation is to introduce the 
tripping foot freely wherever deemed advisable ; in the 
second foot following up, as it were, the strong beginning : — 

Loudly one on another they call to come and lay hold — 
Calmly here at a distance sit looking on at their ease — 
Darting down like a meteor which bright in its radiant splendour 
Marked by soothsayers sends when armies gather to battle. 

Or, again, wherever the cesura gives the power of reversion : — 

The ruin to ward, madly wilt thou this matter regret — 
But who is like thee able with steadfast mind to endure — 
Ho there, thou warrior bold ! son of redoubtable Tjdeus — 



48 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

This form, if applied at cesura on the fourth foot, will 
enable even the sixth foot to be slow with tolerable ease : — 

The many nations of warriors pour ; earth as they tread — 
To take their station seated around, while in the midst — 
Befuse to pay us the forfeit agreed on, breaking the compact — 
Give ye ear likewise to me in reply, great the concern — 

Here, if measured from the end, the sixth foot may still be 
held of three syllables, and there is no doubt that this mode 
of looking at it has its propriety. 

Variation of this kind seems best employed sparingly, but 
warrant for the use may be found in the fact that an ad- 
ditional syllable, in the position from which one has been 
omitted, would add only to the speed of the verse, not to its 
force, in itself undesirable, of which take these conclusive 
instances : — 

Thus dread (ly) glaring he threatened, but seizing a rock in his hand. 
Objects to her of anxious regard both chief (tain)s alike. 

As elsewhere said, an English foot is not any independent 
entity that can be dealt with at will ; one quick foot is by no 
means the equivalent of another ; nor can they be used with 
indifference. To be available in any degree in the opening 
place, a quick foot must be of the slightest possible con- 
struction, above all in the middle syllable of the three : — 

The design of Zeus in fulfilment upon them, even as first 

In the closing foot, there is no amount of syllabic weight 
that cannot easily be got over, in the extreme producing 
spondaic effect. 

Slobbering it out over me so in thy w&yivard young days. 

But precisely as it is allowable thus to deal, do the three 
syllables fail in themselves to constitute a foot in the ordinary 
sense, for the syllable * ward ' is so far enclitic to the rest of 
the word to which it belongs that its affinities are quite cut 
off from what follows. Hence the difference of character a 



QUICK VERSE, UNRHYMED. — CROWN. 49 

quick foot must have for the first place ; hence why a slow 
foot should so much more readily fill the position. It is thus 
seen how deeply the principle of the enclitic odd-over re- 
missible enters into the core of English verse, and how a cer- 
tain regard for the prosodial weight of the syllables used, 
particularly the centre one of quick feet, is imperative to b^ 
observed throughout, with due estimation of their position, 
both in the order and in the line. 

Tolerable equality of membership, whether into two or 
three, occurring line after line, between verses standing apart 
in individual sense, that is not overlined at all, produces an 
elegiacal note : — 

Beholding had on him pity the noble son of Menoetius, 

And thus in heartfelt accents grieving for him he cried, — 

Ah ! hapless leaders and wealsmen ye of the nations of Greece, 

Are ye thus doomed to destruction far from all ye hold dear, 

To glut with your flesh the dogs of the Trojans, no more reaching home? 

But tell me, Eurypylus, prithee, hero of valour and might, 

Can the Achaeans longer bear up against terrible Hector ? 

Or is the dread doom upon them even now by his spear ? 

Then unto him speaking back made answer wounded Evsemon, — 

No longer, noble Patroclus, is any hope for the Greeks ; 

Back from the field driven worsted, their ships receive them in flight ; 

Not one of all their bravest but smitten by arrow or spear, 

And onward and ever onward wilder surgeth the foe. — Iliad, xi. 813. 

Whether treatment of this kind be allowable at all in the 
epic, is matter of opinion, for evidently it sins against the 
Virgilian code of artistic spaces — no line to be exactly divided 
into two or three — no two successive lines with exactly the 
same cesuras, &c. The iEneid through, however, the one 
note struck at the beginning never changes ; with the Iliad, 
far otherwise. 

One thing most apparent, whichever way we turn, is the 
vast advantage yielded by the remissible odd-over, were it 
only for the double choice of break it allows at the middle of 
the line, rendering preventable equal division at will with 
the utmost ease and harmony. It is not too much to say 
that the existence of the verse is bound up with this allow- 

E 



50 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

ance. On it depends alike the elimination of any rhyming 
tendency, the result of an undue emphasis thrown on the last 
syllable, causing it to dwell in the mind, and of the annoying 
jerk brought about by a fixed ending of the other variety, as 
in the English hexameter to be noticed shortly. 

Ehythmic cesura, as observed, is always as near the centre 
of the line as grammatical structure will allow. It will suffer 
displacement for the sense, to the extent of the cesural limit, 
four feet one way or the other, but no farther. All pauses, 
then, beyond this range are sentential pauses, secondary 
cesuras simply ; the verse will have to provide more satisfac- 
torily elsewhere besides, in a more central position : — 

— Then haste and shoot the bold Greek 1 1 in his hour of triumph, and 

vow — 

— Bienor, and then a companion of his 1 1 full speedy upon him. 

Even within limits, especially if the succession of syllables 
be favourable, the cesura will disregard a slight stop, to be- 
come more central : — 

— To birds and dogs, till in full 1 1 the will of Zeus was accomplished. 

— Erst by the great son of Cronus 1 1 himself held, work of Hephaestus 

— Solace of joy, above all || unto the wounded Sarpedon. 

Whether or not sentential pauses, towards the extremes 
of the line, are rendered less necessary by their supernu- 
merary character cesurally, may be a moot question ; but 
certain it is, the structure of the line renders their placement 
somewhat difficult. The requisite for the overlining of a foot 
single is an order of four in the preceding line, followed by 
an apparent one of three, seven feet in all, of which the last 
foot is of necessity forced into the next verse : — 

— But when the great voice breastforth be sent, and words as the snow- 

flakes 
In winter, 

A divisional arrangement of two, two, and three feet will 
not do, for then the foot carried over into the next verse 



QUICK VERSE, UNRHYMED. — CROWN. 51 

appears to trail, as if it ought to have been got into the pre- 
ceding line, but could not : — 

— E'er wrought such wonders as he through Zeus this day past hath done 
On the Grecians — 

There must be no approach to hover ; each syllable that 
receives the accent must be fully capable of receiving it. 
or a very lame effect will be produced: — 

Sing, muse, the wrath of Achilles, which entailed on the Greeks 

Supply a capable word to take the accent, as c which bitter 
entailed,' and all will go well. 

Prepositions may however be occasionally raised to accen- 
tual dignity, that class of words bearing the elevation better 
than others, but it is a practice to be avoided : — 

Stretching his hands for assistance to his kind comrades around — 

— unto the ears 
Of the great son of Laertes coming sudden the sound. 

Conversely, the fewer instances that an accent is slwred 
the better. It is bad enough with a capable monosyllable 
so treated, but no word of two syllables should be, wherever 
it can be possibly helped : — 

— And setting on head his brass helmet, his thick hand clutching a spear — 

— Round on his shoulders a rich mantle threw, the blood-spotted hide— 

-*- From smiting the Greeks, when night's friendly shadows wrapped 
them about — 

It is inconceivable how deadweighted the verse will become 
with a little of this, yet it is a use besetting the operator at 
every step. 

Owing to the great rhythmic force of this measure, it re- 
quires a particular management apart from anything yet 
referred to, which may be called presentation, bearing refer- 
ence to the number of lines anything is said in, to the so 
placing of the words that the sense strikes clearest, to the 

E 2 



52 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

introduction of the ballad refrain in a fitting manner, and so 
on— perhaps locution would best express it. Hardly any 
rules can be given for guidance in this matter, for altogether 
it is one of judgment; but an example or two may show 
what is meant. The following version of a passage already 
given is inferior to it on this account: — 

From the bed of princely Tithonus was rising the goddess of morn, 

Bringing hack light to gods and to men, when Zeus sent fell Strife 

To the swift Grecian galleys, bearing aloft the beacon of war. 

In the midst, on the deep-hulled ship of Ulysses, the goddess took stand, 

Whence to shout alike to the tents of Telamonian Ajax 

And those of Achilles, they who a-trust in the strength of their manhood 

And power of hand updrew their trim ships the outmost of all, &c. 

Another unsatisfactory' passage : — 

Hitherward thitherward tossed were the minds of all the Achaeans, 
Like to when winds contending together, the North and the West, 
Stormy rush down on the fish-bearing sea from cold northern Thrace, 
That on high are cast the huge black billows one on another 
Lashed into foam, and heaped the seaweed far up on the shore. 

Better thus : — 

As tossed and unsettled their minds as the waves of the fishy iEgean, 
When from the chilling uplands of Thrace tempestuous winds, 
The North and the West, have wrestled upon it, and still with the swell 
Runs billow on billow, casting seaweed in heaps on the shore. 

Of course points of this kind are more or less of regard in 
all metres, and concern not so much versification as poetry 
proper, but it is simply meant to state that in this measure 
more than in any other existent will the practiser have 
trouble on this account. Altogether, for more reasons than 
one, this metre is no easy handling, and far from grateful in 
results. 

The elegiacal tone imparted by line movement, and toler- 
ably equal membership in a certain foregoing piece, is not to 
be overlooked, for it touches on the true metre of Elegy 
English. The only further requisite is a slower movement 
to impart a more subdued tone, less of the rise with more of 
the fall cadence : — 



QUICK VERSE, UNRHYMED. — CROWN. 53 

When on my mind there falleth gloomy the shade of that night, 
The last ere an exile driven from all I cherished away, 
When of that night recurrence memory sadly renews, 
Adown my cheek there stealeth still assuageless the tear. 
To dawn the day was drawing by which the sovereign will 
From Italy's outmost confines on penalty bade me depart, 
Nor heart nor time then left me. — Ovid. 

The keynote of crown verse would seem to be the constant 
tendency to the rise, any departure from which is at once 
perceptible. Not to admit the usual rise is in itself a species 
of fall, as great in effect as a real fall that has not the general 
tone to contrast with — in verse, as in music, it being not so 
much the absolute note struck as the relative that makes the 
impression. 

To conclude, the effect of very fast numbers is seldom so 
pleasing as that of more moderate. It is a great mistake to 
suppose that there is any connection between a rattling pace 
and liveliness or vigour. 

It remains now to see how far a rival line can be consti- 
tuted, having a short foot in the sixth place, already instanced 
in a few separate verses : — 

With a sound as of rippling waters rose from her stellar throne 
The joyous queen of the verdant isle, and a strain divine 
Swelled from her blooming lips so fair, and skywards up 
Floated in heavenly harmony, that in the breasts of all 
Who heard the wondrous sound of her song, a holy peace 
Fell as a moonlight calm entrancing, and all was hush. 

The length at which crown measure has been treated ren- 
ders it unnecessary to go into this in similar detail. Suffice 
it to say that it is seen to be quite practicable, that overlining 
can be carried on almost with as much ease as in blank verse, 
but that for an heroic measure the other must carry the day, 
unless a partnership be set up in any intermediate degree, as 
taste and circumstances determine. 



54 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

VII. 

FALSE METRE AND DUBIOUS. 

An assumption that has been proceeded on throughout is 
that the true metre of any verse is that which the run of 
words sets to. If the professed metre be at variance with the 
run evident, the former is to be declared in the wrong ; and if 
still the verse be characterised as of that metre, it must be 
with the qualification of false. 

Tripping metre, as elsewhere stated, does not admit the 
hover, least of all in the first foot, that by which the run is 
so greatly determined. In the following, a piece apparently 
meant for trip, is in a fair way of lapsing into the forward, 
the third syllable being far stronger than the first : — 

Of Prometheus, how undaunted 

On Olympus' shining bastions 
His audacious foot he planted, 
Myths are told and songs are chaunted, 

Full of promptings and suggestions. — Longfellow. 

This is by no means a solitary instance of the kind ; the fol- 
lowing is for the most part in the same predicament : — 

THE CRT OF THE CHILDREN. 

Do ye hear the children weeping, my brothers, 

Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, 

And that cannot stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 

The young birds are chirping in the nest, 
The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 

The young flowers are blooming toward the west — 
But the young, young children, my brothers, 

They are weeping bitterly ! 
They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 

In the country of the free. — Mrs. Browning. 

Under this head must also come all attempted dactylic 



FALSE METRE AND DUBIOUS. 55 

verse which cannot be classed as revert (see ch. xv.), includ- 
ing the so-called English hexameter, which thus identifies 
itself in great measure with the verse last treated under the 
name of crown, being, as before said, the same with restric- 
tions : — 

This is | the fo|rest prime|val. The mur|muring pines | and the hemjlocksr, 
Bearded | with moss, | and with garments green, | indistinct | in the 

twi| light, 
Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic ; 
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. 
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighbouring ocean 
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. 

This is the forest primeval ; but where are the hearts that beneath it 
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the 

huntsman ? 
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, — 
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that watered the woodlands, 
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven ? 

Longfellow. 

The true scanning of this measure is as marked in the 
sample, that which it naturally sets to in spite of anyone. 
The odd-over constant which every verse is seen to possess is 
the cause of the peculiar jerk which an impartial reader 
finds so dislocating to his sense of euphony and melody, and 
which even the illustrious author of the above copy compares 
to a prisoner dancing to the music of his own chains. 

The professed composition is that the fifth foot is a dactyl, 
the sixth a trochee, the other four feet either at will, making 
the scanning thus, with the accent at the beginning of the 
foot throughout : — 

This is the | forest pri | meval. The | murmuring | pines and the | hemlocks 

It may not be amiss to state the fathership of this metre. 

There are those who, resigning themselves to the futility of 
attempting to write in quantity, yet cling to classical metres 
by the fiction elsewhere set forth, the use of the same nomi- 
nal feet. They reason thus of the hexameter : — Homer and 
Virgil have used this metre with vast effect, and we of 



56 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

this country, though pronouncing their languages after our 
own fashion, as were they so much English, are yet able to 
get from them a full and flowing melody of undeniable 
worth : — 

Arm a vir unique cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris 
Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinia yenit 
Littora; mult(um) ill(e) et terris jactatus et alto, 
Vi superum, saevae memorem Junonis ob iram. 
Multa quoqu(e) et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, 
Inferretque Deos Latio : genus unde Latinum, 
Albanique patres, atqu(e) altae moenia Romae. 

If so good an effect, they argue, can be got from Latin 
treated as English, why not obtain the same effect in English 
itself, by arranging it in like manner ? The result may be 
seen in the example before given. 

The reasons of the difference ought not to be far to seek. 
The prime cause, as may well be supposed, is in the unac- 
cordant natures of the two languages. The simple state of 
the case is, that Latin, with its sonorous syllables, will bear 
what English with its vowels three-quarters mutes will not. 

In English, every syllable of a word that receives the ac- 
cent is relatively more important than the others. The word 
centres in that syllable, and the rest is but enclitic to it. But 
though we professedly treat Latin as English, the accent we 
throw on the words of that language is by no means the 
equivalent in that respect of what we throw on our own ; we 
indeed single out one syllable, but we by no means degrade 
the others. 

Substitute a single English word in place of the closing 
one in each Latin line, and the whole melody of the verse will 
be destroyed : — 

Arma virumque cano Trojae qui primus, ab army 
Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinia forest 
Littora; mult' ill' et terris jactatus exhausted 
Vi superum, saevae memorem Junonis ob absent 

Need more be said to make clear that to rule the two Ian- 



FALSE METRE AND DUBIOUS. 57 

guages on one pattern, must needs lodge the perpetrator in a 
quagmire ? 

But in supposing the English put through the same disci- 
pline as the Latin, a further error is committed. The accent 
in the latter language has been made to undergo a displace- 
ment not to be thought of in English. Where, in dealing 
with separate words, we should before have said cano, we now 
say cano. Trojae has become Trojae; fato, fato; profugus, 
profugus : passus, passus, and so on. 

Latin being a dead language, we treat it as we please, but 
in English nothing is more vital than the accent ; the lan- 
guage will bear violence in any particular rather than in that. 
Fancy reading: — 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlock, 

but such would be only analogous. It is rather that hence 
in the ancient model the real hexameter cadence is procured, 
than from anything answering to run either backward or for- 
ward in English, which in Greek and Latin seems mainly 
indeterminate. 

The English hexameter, from its very structure, tends to 
the rise almost throughout, even more than crown verse ; with 
mid-cesura, unless, indeed, remaining slow, it unavoidably 
does, the last member being set so by rule, the first not having 
scope to be other, a quick foot in the second place being 
debarred, even more completely than a slow one in the sixth. 
In the second member there is indeed a rare occasional fall, 
known as the spondaic ending : — 

Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark Mountains, 
Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred housetops. 

But the term spondaic is no longer truly applicable here, for 
the weight of the syllables is little regarded in the arrange- 
ment, and even if it were, would not tell to any purpose. 

Actual fall, even in an opening four-foot member, where it 
can come about, is somewhat rare : — 

Happy was he who might touch her hand and the hem of her garment. 
She, too, would bring to her husband's house delight and abundance. 



58 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Four dissyllabic feet in one member is more frequent ; but 
the whole, it is seen, is but crown again under restriction. 
Such an exceptional line as 

Stand like j harpers | hoar, || with beards | that rest | on their bo | soma, 

must be held to scan thus, c hoar ' forming a foot to itself; for 
the attraction of the other verses will cause the run to revert 
to the forward at the cesura. (See further on this subject, 
chaps, xvi. and xvii.) 

Be it remarked, from their very rigidity, a certain advan- 
tage accrues to the practiser of hexameters ; for his range of 
expression being limited by law, he cannot be held responsible 
for not going beyond it, whence the troublesome branch of 
the subject dubbed ' presentation ' will hardly be a concern to 
him, for the jerking of the metre so determines the one unal- 
terable expression, that how a thing is said in it, or in what 
words, appears of little or no account, and not to be metrically 
reflected at all. 

Some may deem that crown verse as set forth has been 
allowed too great license ; some, on the other hand, may in- 
cline to quite the contrary opinion ; but all in practice can 
please themselves. Any system must be finally judged by 
its products, over which there is no controlling canon, nor 
can there be any above that of pleasing proportion regulated 
by good taste. 

There may still be those who will adhere to this restricted 
form of the metre, for false or not in dactylic regard, it exists 
for what it is worth ; but if such there should be, let them 
be particularly careful, whenever the first foot is meant to be 
a trochee, that the opening syllable of every line be strongly 
accentual, otherwise the verse, having a tendency to lapse 
into the forward from the very beginning, will appear of five 
feet, not six : — 

As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in her lovers, — 
And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and the bridegroom. 

Of the elegiac as received on this plan, take the following, 



FALSE METRE AND DUBIOUS. 59 

a translation from Schiller's e Walk/ by Sir J. Herschel. It 
is far more readable than the simple hexameter form, on ac- 
count of the variation in ending brought about by the 
so-called pentameters always written alternately with the 
other. 

A pentameter, it should be said, is by rule of this build; 
central cesura, first member of two feet dactyl or spondee at- 
will, with a long odd syllable over, ditto the last member, 
save that the feet are of dactyls always. Now for the ex- 
ample : — 

Sacred walls ! from whose bosom the seeds of humanity, wafted 

E'en to the farthest isles, morals and arts have conveyed. 
Sages in these thronged gates in justice and judgment have spoken : 

Heroes to battle have rushed hence for their altars and homes : 
Mothers the while (their infants in arms), from the battlements gazing, 

Follow with tears the host till in the distance it fades : 
Then to the temples crowding and prostrate flung at the altars 

Pray for their triumph and fame — pray for their joyful return. 
Triumph and fame are theirs, but in vain their welcome expects them. 

Read how th' exciting stone tells of their glorious deserts : 
Traveller, when to Sparta thou comest, declare thou hast seen us 

.Each man slain at his post, e'en as the law hath ordained. 
Soft be your honoured rest ! with your precious life-blood besprinkled 

Freshens the olive-bough — sparkles with harvest the plain. 

And now to go on to other matters. 

The most frequent error English writers of quick verse 
fall into, is that of overweighting the three-syllabled foot. 
The syllable of the three that it most behoves not to over- 
burden is the middle one. As long as this position is occu- 
pied by part of a word with the accent elsewhere, there is 
little to apprehend ; but when it comes to monosyllables, too 
much care cannot be taken. The more hedges and ditches 
that can be got over without a spill, the more seemingly of 
some literary steeplechasers the enjoyment. To these let 
there be left their sport, but also let those who wish to drive 
smoothly be informed of obstacles that lie in their path. 

The worst stumblingblock in all English is the word « our,' 
and the next, perhaps, the poetical < flower.' The second of 



60 ENGLISH VERIFICATION. 

these is acknowledged to be of two syllables ; the first, owing 
to our absurd mode of spelling, only one, though nowise dif- 
ferent virtually from the other. Flower, indeed, is more often 
than not in verse jotted down flow'r, with a mark of elision, 
and treated as a monosyllable; but in the muteness so com- 
mon among English short vowels unaccented, this is not suffi- 
cient, the vowel still remains as much as ever ; the mute 
required to pronounce the 6 r' in 'our' is no otherwise 
circumstanced. Never must either or any other resembling 
word be treated as of less than two syllables, under any cir- 
cumstances whatever. 

Herein lies the awkwardness of ' our ' above all other words. 
Too insignificant to receive the accent, it yet always demands 
the consideration of a dissyllable, which is rendered the more 
annoying by its frequent recurrence. 

Mark the overloaded effect from treating these words as 
of one syllable only, and then cramming them into quick 
feet : — 

Reflecting our eyes as they sparkle and weep — 

To the delicate growth of our isle — 

Their time with the flow'rs on the margin have wasted. 

c Even/ ( heaven,' and participles of this ending, are words 
most hap to be abused in the same way : — 

Nor ev'n in the hour when his heart is most gay — 
One bright drop or two that has fall'n on the leaves. 

It is hardly too much to say, that nearly every piece of 
quick verse in English is more or less marred by this wilful 
procedure. 

The chapter on false metre may not be an unsuitable place 
to introduce that of false emphasis, though there is no con- 
nection between the two subjects. 

When a word is italicised, surely one would say that it is to 
indicate a more emphatic accent is to be thrown on that word ; 
if not, why signalise it? But a syllable, strangely enough, is 
often italicised between accents, which it appears to be the 
writer's desire to fetch up like a dropped stitch. The ab- 



FALSE METRE AND DUBIOUS. 61 

surdity of such an arrangement needs no pointing out, for 
the impossibility of emphasising a syllable in a position 
whence the accent is designedly excluded speaks for itself: — 

The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear 

Italics ought to be excluded from verse altogether ; where 
there is anything emphatic for the accent to mark, the ac- 
cent itself is the best thing to mark it with : — 

Ye would be dupes and victims, and ye are. 

The grave accent appears the proper one to denote when 
a syllable commonly passed over receives separate pronuncia- 
tion, as amazed ; the acute when the beat itself receives any 
displacement, as harmonie. 

Italics in verse are a pretty sure indication of something 
faulty, showing a latent idea in the writer's mind, that such 
and such a passage is not as expressive or emphatic as it 
was meant to be. 



VIII. 

QUICK VERSE RHYMED. 



As remarked in the previous sections, the character of quick 
verse depends not only on the relative numbers of the two 
feet in combination, but as much or more on their relative 
position. The whole number of varieties may be grouped 
into two classes — that which has the metrical rise sustained 
on till the end of the verse, and that which has it succeeded 
by feet of slower progression. 

First, the class in which the rise is sustained. Here it 
may be noticed more perhaps than anywhere how essentially 
the nature of English feet is one of pace ; neither a matter of 
force nor of weight, nor of anything so much as slowness or 
quickness in exact proportion to the mixture of the feet of 



62 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

those qualities in the verse. It is by and through pace that 
every effect in English verse comes about that depends on 
the foot arrangement for its cause. What other effects and 
tones there are arise from other sources — latent melody, latent 
prosody, rhythmic cadencing, &c. 

The selections will be chosen to illustrate as appropriately 
as may be the different degrees of speed, but it would be to 
multiply examples needlessly to cite apart every variation in 
this respect. 

Two-foot quatrain: — 

'Tis the last rose of summer 

Left blooming alone ; 
All her lovely companions 

Are faded and gone ; 
No flow'r of her kindred, 

No rosebud is nigh, 
To reflect back her blushes, 

Or give sigh for sigh ! — T. Moore. 

Three-foot or six, as written : — 

The valley lay smiling before me, 

When lately I left her behind ; 
Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me 

That saddened the joy of my mind. 
I looked for the lamp which she told me 

Should shine when her pilgrim returned ; 
But though darkness began to infold me, 

No lamp from the battlements burned. — T. Moore. 

Four-foot and three alternate, or seven as written : — 

The rose had been washed, just washed in a shower, 

Which Mary to Anna conveyed ; 
The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower, 

And weighed down its beautiful head. 
The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet, 

And it seemed to a fanciful view, 
To weep for the buds it had left with regret 

On the flourishing bush where it grew. — Cowper. 



QUICK YEKSE RHYMED. 63 



Four -foot , 



I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled 

Above the green elms that a cottage was near ; 

And I said ; ( If there's peace to be found in the world, 

A heart that is humble may hope for it here.' 

Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound 

But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree. 

i And here in this lone little wood/ I exclaimed, 

* With a maid that was lovely to soul and to eye, 

Who would blush if I praised her, and weep if I blamed, 

How blest could I live and how calm could I die ! ' 

Every leaf, &c. 

Five-foot : — 

At the mid-hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly 

To the lone vale we loved when life shone warm in thine eye ; 

And I think that if spirits can steal from the regions of air, 

To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there, 

And tell me our love is remembered e'en in the sky. 

Then I sing the wild song, which once 'twas rapture to hear, 

When our voices both mingling breathed like one on the ear ; 

And as echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls, 

I think, oh my love ! 'tis thy voice from the kingdom of souls, 

Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear ! 

T. Moore. 

Verses wholly of quick feet, of which rhyme is not without 
examples, though they may be ranged most agreeably as a 
separate class, are in nature, but of the last instanced, raised 
to the utmost of speed. It might not be amiss to call them 
double quick : — 

He is gone on the mountain, 

He is lost to the forest, 
Like a summer-dried fountain, 

When our need was the sorest. 
The fount reappearing 

From the raindrops shall borrow, 
But to us comes no cheering, 

To Duncan no morrow. — W. Scott. 

Note the odd-over in every line 5 not allowed for in the 
opening of the next. 



64 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Four foot : — 

Rise, O Muse, in the wrath of thy rapture divine, 
And sweep with a finger of awe every line, 
Till it tremble and burn as thine own glances burn, 
Through the vision thou kindlest ! wherein I discern 
All the unconscious Cruelty hid in the heart 
Of mankind ; all the limitless grief we impart 
Unawares to each other ; the limitless wrong 
"We inflict without heed, as we hurry along 
In this boisterous pastime of life. So we toy 
With the infinite ! So in our sport we destroy, &c. 

R. Lytton. 
Six-foot ditto : — 

And his heart said within him, Alas ! 
For man dies ! if his glory abideth, himself from his glory shall pass. 
And that which remaineth behind he seeth it not any more. 
For how shall he know what comes after, who knoweth not what went 

before ? 
I have planted me gardens and vineyards, and gotten me silver and gold, 
And my hand from whatever my heart hath desired I did not withhold : 
And what profit have I in the works of my hands which I take not away ? 
I have searched out wisdom and knowledge ; and what do they profit 

me, they ? 
As the fool dieth, so doth the wise. What is gathered is scattered again, 
As the breath of the beasts even so is the breath of the children of men : 
And the same thing befalleth them both. And not any man's soul is his 

own. — R. Lytton. 

The following are examples of the checked or falling 
rhythm : — 

Three-foot : — 

I arise from dream of thee 

In the first sweet sleep of night, 

When the winds are breathing low, 

And the stars are shining bright : 

I arise from dream of thee, 

And a spirit in my feet 

Has led me — who knows how ? 

To thy chamber window sweet. — Shelley. 

Here the quick foot is constantly the first and no other, 
whence a considerable difference in run between this ex- 
ample and the next, where the sole quick place is the second. 



QUICK TERSE RHYMED. 65 

Has sorrow thy young days shaded, 

As clouds o'er the morning fleet ? 
Too fast have those young days faded, 

That even in sorrow were sweet ? 
Does Time with his cold wing wither 

Each feeling that once was dear ? — 
Come, child of misfortune ! come hither, 

I'll weep with thee tear for tear. — Moore. 

Four-foot : — 

The mistletoe hung in the castle hall, 

And the holly branch shone on the old oak wall ; 

The baron's retainers were blithe and gay, 

Keeping their Christmas holiday. 

The baron beheld, with a father's pride, 

His beautiful child young Lovel's bride. 

She with her bright eyes seemed to be 

The star of that goodly company. 

I am weary of dancing now, she cried, 

Yet tarry awhile, I'll hide, I'll hide ; 

And, Lovel, be sure you are first to trace 

The clue to my secret hiding-place. 

Away she ran, and her friends began 

Each bower to search, and each nook to scan — 

Here the quick foot, in contrast to the two preceding ex- 
amples, has free range of the first three feet. 

Five-foot : — 

Through grief and through danger thy smile hath cheered my way, 

Till hope seemed to bud from each thorn that round me lay. 

The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burned; 

Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turned ; 

Yes, slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free, 

And blessed even the sorrows that made me more dear to thee. 

Thy rival was honoured, whilst thou wert wronged and scorned, 

Thy crown was of briars, while gold her brows adorned, 

She Wooed me to temples, whilst thou lay hid in caves, 

Her friends were all masters, while thine, alas ! were slaves, 

Yet cold in the earth at thy feet I would rather be, 

Than wed what I love not, or turn one thought from thee. 

T. Moore. 



66 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

It is not at all pretended that any strict line of division is 
constantly observed between these classes in practice ; indeed, 
one stanza often differs greatly from another in the same 
poem. Though the individual lines must necessarily incline 
one way or the other, when freely intermixed, as in most of 
the following examples, they may be held to create an inde- 
pendent variety, the changeable. 



Tivo-foot : 



By the fair and brave 

Who "blushing unite, 
Like the sun and wave 

When they meet at night ! 
By the tear that shows 

When passion is nigh, 
As the raindrop flows 

From the heat of the sky ! — T. Mooee. 



Four-foot and three :- 



Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, 

As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; 
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot 

O'er the grave where our hero we buried. 
We buried him darkly at dead of night, 

The sods with our bayonets turning, 
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light, 

And the lantern dimly burning. — Wolfe., 



Four-foot : 



Svend Vonved bound his sword to his side, 
He fain will battle with knights of pride ; 
So fierce and strange was his whole array, 
No mortal ventured to cross his way. 
His helm was blinking against the sun, 
His spurs were clinking his heels upon, 
His horse was springing, with bridle ringing, 
While sat the warrior wildly singing. 
He rode a day, he rode for three, 
No town or city he yet could see ; 
1 Ha,' said the youth, i by my father's hand, 
There is no city in all this land.'— G. Borrow. 



QUICK VEESE RHYMED. 67 

Five-foot : — 

Dread you their haunting, oh man of the world- wise brow ? 

These ghosts, would you banish them all away from our earth? 

Alas ! when I was haunted, the loveless dearth 

Never came over my soul that is over it now. 

Oh for the beautiful spirits that haunted me 

In the long sweet hours of the pallid winter nights, 

With the noiseless garb and the tremulous angel-lights, 

Lighting my soul, as the sunlight the desolate sea ! 

Emily Hickey. 
Six-foot : — 

Is it ever hot in the square ? There's a fountain to sport and splash ! 
In the shade it sings and springs ; in the shine such foam-bows flash 
On the horses with curling fishtails, that prance and paddle and pash 
Hound the lady atop in the conch — fifty gazers cannot abash, 
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of 

sash. 
All the year long at the villa, there's nothing to see though you linger, 
Except yon cypress that points like Death's lean lifted forefinger. 

E. Browning. 

Another variety the same length : — 

Here alone with my dead ; the sight of a human face (trip tivo deep) 

Makes the pain sharper, I think ; so none but the Saviour of Grace 

Shall see me, as here I sit with the white-clad motionless form 

Of my little son who is dead lying upon my arm. (trip at cesura) 

I have laid him down in the cot that each night used I rock, and spread 

All the tender flowers I could gather about his head; (trip three deep) 

Early spring-time it is, so I could only find 

Delicate violet-bloom, that shrank from the bitter wind. 

Emily Hickey. 

There is little to be observed of these forms individually or 
collectively ; the applications that they serve are exemplified 
in the given extracts, songs, ballads, and minor poems in 
general. Bather as the poet's particular production com- 
mends itself to our liking we feel well or ill disposed to the 
measures employed. 



f2 



68 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

IX. 

THE UNRHYMED STATE. 

State or stanza is the general designation for any number of 
lines connected together on any plan, regular or irregular ; 
staTe, as far as any distinction exists, applying more perhaps 
to the minor forms, stanza to the longer and more elaborate. 

As opposed to the continuous or leading forms of a metre, 
the staTe exhibits the powers of the same in some settled 
arrangement, or combination of pattern repeated OTer and 
oTer again. 

As on other occasions, our subject must be divided, to 
begin, into two great branches — the unrhymed and the 
rhymed — totally dissimilar. 

A Tariation on blank Terse, eTen so slightly different as 
the next, is not without its metric effect, the mere divisioning 
followed inclining to a Terse-by-verse arrangement ; each com- 
plete usually in its own sense, brings about a closer unity of 
the line, which acting as a more definite integer in compo- 
sition, tends apparently in some degree to quicken the move- 
ment — a needful requirement. 

The first three lines of the next example are, it will be 
seen, odd-OTer regularly, the last strict measure ; a greater 
degree of fixity in this point as well as in others usually 
attending concretion into the staTe, especially where brief: — 

1 Son/ thus his father widowed long and aged, 
Mournfully said, ' The young are never lonely ; 
Solitude's self to them is a boon comrade ; 
Lone are the aged ; lone amid the crowd. 

Loneliest when brooding o'er a silent hearthstone 
Vacant of prattlers, coaxing back to laughter : 
Toy3 to the greybeard are bis children's children ; 
They are to age, my son, as hopes to youth.' 

Btjlwer Lytton. 

In the same Tolume whence this was taken, 'The Lost 
Tales of Miletus,' there is another poem ' The Wife of Miletus,' 



THE UNRHYMED STATE. 69 

in a measure the fellow of this, save that the endings are 
strict measure and odd-over alternately. 

In the next instanced we have a four-lined stave with the 
third line shortened to three feet, only the concluding verse 
with the extra syllable : — 

Omartes, king of the wide plains which, north 
Of Tanais, pasture steeds for Scythian Mars, 

Forsook the simple ways 
And nomad tents of his unconquered fathers ; 

And in the fashion of the neighbouring Medes, 
Built a great city girt with moat and wall, 

And in the midst thereof 
A royal palace dwarfing piles in Susa. — Bulwer Lytton". 

Another poem by the same, entitled * chalcas, 5 otherwise 
like this, has the first three lines odd-over, the last only strict 
measure. 

Another form, the last line shortened : — 

Thou spirit of the spangled night ! 
I woo thee from the watch-tower high, 
"Where thou dost sit to guide the bark 
Of lonely mariner. 

The winds are whistling o'er the wolds, 
The distant main is moaning low : 
Come, let us sit and weave a song — 
A melancholy song. — Kirke White. 

A piece entitled ' Death and Sisyphus ' has this identical 
structure in the tales above quoted. 

It is worthy of remark in passing, that all the variations on 
a stave of four-lined march metre within the bounds observed, 
though all consistently diverging from blank verse in tone, 
yet have the strongest resemblance one to another. 

Lord Lytton has been the first to apply metres of this class 
to narrative, the result in all cases being highly successful. 
The single case in which he has applied tripping metre can- 
not, however, receive the same meed of approbation ; the 
arrangement is such that a call for rhyme arises : — 



70 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION, 

Many wonders on the ocean 

By the moonlight may be seen. 
Under moonlight on the Euxine 

Eose the blessed silver isle. 

As Leonymus of Croton, 

At the Pythian god's behest, 
Steered along the troubled waters 

To the tranquil Spirit-land. 

Ehyme may be as easily dispensed with in tripping as in 
march metre, if only care be taken that an accented syllable 
rarely conclude the line, above all not the closing one, if a 
similar proceeding has taken place one or two verses before 
it ; otherwise, as in the above, the demand for concurrence of 
sound at those points will be too great to be disregarded. 

This precept, where no lack of rhyme is felt, is exemplified 
in the next, a piece having nigh the same arrangement in 
tripping metre as that beginning ' Omartes,' and equally 
satisfactory : — 

Leafless are the trees ; their purple branches 
Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral, 

Eising silent 
In the Eed Sea of the winter sunset. 

From the hundred chimneys of the village, 
Like the Afreet in the Arabian story, 

Smoky columns 
Tower aloft into the air of amber. — Longfellow. 

The next differs from that we have had before in having 
the strong beginning and odd syllable over both constant, 
with a frequent hover on the fourth foot: — 

Swift through the sky the vessel of the Suras 
Sails up the field of ether like an angel. 
Eich is the freight, vessel, that thou bearest ! 
Beauty and virtue, 

Fatherly cares and filial veneration, 
Hearts which are proved and strengthened by affliction, 
Manly resentment, fortitude, and action, 
Womanly goodness. — Southey. 



THE UNRHYMED STAVE. 71 

Again we have another form, consisting, with burden in- 
cluded, of an unrhymed triplet : — 

I have had playmates, I have had companions 

In my days of childhood, in my joyful schooldays ; 

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. 

I have been laughing, I have been carousing, 
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies ; 
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. — C. Lamb. 

A commoner arrangement has two lines of five feet alter- 
nated with two of three : — 

Then let me roam some wild and heathy scene, 
Or find some ruin midst its dreary dells, 

Whose walls more awful nod 

By thy religious gleams. 

Or if chill blustering winds and driving rain 

Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut, 
That from the mountain side 
Views wild, and swelling floods. — Collins. 

Longfellow has the following :— 

Welcome, my old friend, 
Welcome to a foreign fireside, 
« While the sullen gales of autumn 
Shake the windows. 

. The ungrateful world 
Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, 
Since beneath the skies of Denmark, 
First I met thee. 

An alternation of four-foot strict measure and three-foot 
odd-over has been employed in a continuous form in the old 
English poem, ' The Ormulum,' modernised by Mr. Marsh in 
his f Manual of the English Language.' No praise can be 
accorded to this style : — 

Now, brother Walter, brother mine 

After the flesh's nature ; 
And brother mine in Christianty, 

By baptism and believing ; 



72 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

And brother in the house of God, 

Eke in another manner, 
In that we both have taken up 

One priestly rule to follow. 

A kind of irregular stanza has been employed by Shelley in 
his ' Queen Mab ;' march metre in lines for the most part of 
four and three feet at will : — 

If solitude hath ever led thy step3 
To the wild ocean's echoing shore, 

And thou hast lingered there 

Until the sun's broad orb 
Seemed resting on the burnished wave, 

Thou must have marked the lines 
Of purple gold that motionless 

Hung o'er the sinking sphere : 
Thou must have marked the billowy clouds, 
Edged with intolerable radiancy, 

Towering like rocks of jet 

Crowned with a diamond wreath. 

And yet there is a moment, 

When the sun's highest point 
Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge, 
When those far clouds of feathery gold, 
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam 
Like islands on a dark blue sea ; 
Then has thy fancy soared above the earth, 

And furled its wearied wing 

Within the Fairy's shrine. 

Again a more irregular variety of the same from Southey's 
'Thalaba':— 

Alas, the setting sun 

Saw Zeinab in her bliss, 

Hodeirah's wife beloved, 

The fruitful mother late, 
Whom when the daughters of Arabia named 

They wished their lot like hers. 
She wanders o'er the desert sands 

A wretched widow now ; 
The fruitful mother of so fair a race 

With only one preserved, 
She wanders o'er the wilderness. 



THE TJNBHYMED STATE. 73 

There is not much to be said either for or against this 
style, only it may be observed as a general rule that when 
lines differ in length irregularly, aud have neither rhyme nor 
settled cadence to mark their changes, nor some recurrent 
form or sentiment at intervals, the mind is put on the stretch 
to discover such, which, not being found, results in its rather 
being perplexed than pleased, as from a sense of dispropor- 
tion. 

In the following we have quite another effect, which seems 
to work better : — • 

But mighty thunder pealed ; the earth it shook, 

While rattled all the moss-grown giant stones, 

And Oldom's sunken grave-hill raised itself; 

Then started Skiold and Frode 

And Svend and Knud and Waldemar, 

In copper hauberks up, and pointing to 

Rust-spots of blood on falchion and on shield — 

They vanished. 

And in the Gothic aisles high-arched and dim, 

Wild fluttered of itself the ancient banner 

Which hung above a hero's bones ; 

The falchion clattered loud and ceaselessly 

Within the tomb of Christian the Fourth. 

By Tordenskiold's chapel on the strand 

Wild rose the daring mermaids' witching song; 

The stones were loosened round about the grave 

Where lay great Juul ; 

And Hvidtfeld, clad in a transparent mist, 

With smiles cherubic beaming on his face, 

Strayed, arm in arm with his heroic brothers, 

Along the deep. — Gr. Boerow. 

Here the ground-verse, with trifling exception, being of one 
fixed length, the perception catches well at the fact that the 
short lines are introduced with a purpose, they being so dis- 
posed as to come in with telling effect. Were the short breaks 
feeble, the effect would be feeble, for the attention is made 
to halt on these points in chief. 

In a stanza so irregular as the following, the same line re- 
peated, though at unsettled intervals, is more than sufficient 
to guide the ear, which appears to be the one thing requisite : 



74 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Oh, what am I to all, 
What all to me ? 
I go forth sad, sad, silent, and alone. 

Speak ye of sympathy, 
Of hearts' communion ? 
Can two souls yoke 
And beat and answer each to each ? 
I only know 
That such is not for me : 
I go forth sad, sad, silent, and alone. 

If souls so meet, 
Cease they that weary longing, 
That v earning after something 
Undefined? 

Find they that resting-place 
The weary seek for ? 
I only know 
Not all the weary rest : 
I go forth sad, sad, silent, and alone. 

Comparatively rare as unrhymed staves are in any form, 
In quick metre they are hardly found at all ; certainly not to 
the extent they deserve. 

In the following little piece, every line, except the com- 
mencing, has one march foot and one quick with the odd 
syllable ; written continuously this would make a quick succes- 
sion throughout : — 

In the convent of Drontheim, 

Alone in her chamber 

Knelt Astred the abbess, 

At midnight adoring, 

Beseeching, entreating 

The Virgin and Mother. 

She heard in the silence 

The voice of one speaking, 

Without in the darkness 

In gusts of the nightwind, 

Now louder, now nearer, 

Now lost in the distance. — Longfellow. 

The following is about the most harmonious and alto- 
gether most satisfactory combination of mixed feet anywhere 
met with: — 



THE STAVE RHYMED. 75 

O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies, 
skilled to sing of time or eternity, 

God-gifted organ- voice of England, 

Milton, a name to resound for ages ; 

Whose Titan angels Gabriel, Abdiel, 
Starred from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, 
Tower as the deep-domed empyrean 
Eings to the roar of an angel onset. — Tejotsox. 

The quickness in the above, it may be seen, is confined to 
the foot before the last, and to the first, second, and fourth lines 
respectively. 

The conclusion of a verse by a quick foot, succeeded by a 
slow one constituting the fall cadence, is a most pleasing form 
when not overdone ; it might often perhaps serve as a finish to 
a stave otherwise of march metre, thus : — 

None else was with them in that hour 
Save God and that little child. 
Or again: — 

With curious faces carved upon their front 
And dates of the olden time. 

The hover, also most undeservedly neglected in general, may 
be remarked on as forming the last foot in the longer lines of 
the stave by Tennyson above quoted ; but at the end of a verse 
its action is far other from what it is in the word ' upon ' just 
cited, where its enlivening effect pronounced naturally nearly 
equals that of a quick foot. 



X. 

THE STAVE RHYMED. 



From their very great number and diversity rhymed staves can- 
not be so briefly dismissed as the unrhymed, their multiplicity 
having, in fact, given more trouble of arrangement than any 
other part of the present task. The plan that has been finally 



76 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

pursued is to group them after their most prominent peculi- 
arities, and it is confidently hoped a way through the maze has 
at length been definitely traced. The subject from its extent 
takes several chapters to dispose of fully, beginning with the 
shortest and most definite forms. 

Here, as elsewhere, it has been found necessary to name as 
we go. What terms there are in existence, such as song, ode, 
lay, ballad, dirge, ditty, and even sonnet, do not primarily 
specify metrical varieties, but classes of composition. One of 
these, the sonnet, has indeed come to receive restricted appli- 
cation to the form in which the species is ordinarily moulded, 
and so the class term become limited to one particular variety, 
but it is somewhat of an exception. 

A metrical definition in set terms of any form may of course 
be given, so many lines of such a length in such a metre 
arranged so and so, and rhymed so and so, but the need of 
having recourse to such a roundabout description only makes 
the want of a proper name doubly apparent. 

(1.) The first class of stave may be described as any of the 
continuous forms previously given, subdivided without further 
alteration. If rhymed in couplets, the stave will then be 
generally of two, three, or four couplets; if of alternate 
rhyming, as far more commonly, it is then of single or double 
quatrain length, as may be. This class may for the most part 
be passed over without further comment, as already sufficiently 
illustrated; it includes the majority of songs, ballads, and 
minor odes, &c, for which reason be it denominated the staple 
form. 

Of lines of different length alternated, the only combina- 
tions of any frequency are those of four and three feet in all 
metres already exemplified. 

The following is an instance of five and three-foot thus 
arranged, somewhat rare comparatively : — 

I heard the trailing garments of the Night 

Sweep through her marble halls ! 
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light 

From the celestial walls ! 



THE STATE RHYMED. 77 

I felt her presence, by its spell of might, 

Stoop o'er me from above ; 
The calm majestic presence of the-Night, 

As of the one I love. — Longfellow. 

Or the counter-form of the same, beginning with the short 
line, as in the piece of Sir W. Jones : — 

What constitutes a state ? 
Kot high-raised battlement and laboured mound. 

Where the difference between the length of the alternating 
lines is greater than this, the shorter has much of the character 
of a refrain : — 

And my own heart is as the lute 

I now am waking ; 
Wound to too fine and high a pitch, 

They both are breaking. 
And of the song what memory 

Will stay behind ? 
An echo, like a passing thought 

Upon the mind. 
Silence, forgetfulness, and rest, 

Lute, are for thee, 
And such my lot ; neglect, the grave, 

These are for me. — L^ititia Lakdon. 

In this with a greater inequality still more so : — 

Ah, Love ! 
Perjured, false, treacherous Love ! 

Enemy 
Of all that mankind may not rue ! 

Most untrue 
To him who keeps most faith with thee ! 

Woe is me 
The falcon has the eyes of the dove. 

Ah, Love ! 
Perjured, false, treacherous Love. — Longfellow. 

(2.) Verses are sometimes arranged in triplets, thus : — 

A still small voice spake unto me, 
Thou art so full of misery 
Were it not better not to be ? 



4 8 ENGLISH YEESIFICATION. 

Then to the still small voice I said, 

Let me not cast in endless shade 

What is so wonderfully made. — Tennyson. 

Or thus, the middle line of one triplet rhyming with the 
middle of the next : — 

It was my fate to reach a brook at last 
Which, by sweet-scented bushes fenced around, 
Defiance bade to heat and nipping blast. 

Inclined to rest and hear the wild bird's song, 

I stretched myself upon the brook's soft bound, 

And there I fell asleep and slumbered long. — Gr. Borbow. 

Occasionally the inner verses of a quatrain rhyme together, 
and the outer together : — 

You ask me why, though ill at ease, 

Within this region I subsist, 

Whose spirit falter in the mist, 
And languish for the purple seas. 

It is the land that freemen till, 
That sober-suited freedom chose, 
The land where, girt with friends and foes, 

A man may speak the thing he will. — Tennyson. 

This arrangement, perhaps best styled outabout, is seldom 
found by itself, oftener as part of a longer stanza. 

(3.) A very large number of staves have the general forma- 
tion of couplet, triplet, or quatrain, alternated with lines of the 
same or different lengths, generally rhyming together. 

There is a word, roundel, which it is proposed to adopt out- 
of-hand for this group in all phases. Kondo and roundelay 
will still be left if required to supply its place, in the old half- 
forgotten meaning of a song that began with the burden with 

which it ended. 

'Tis most certain 

By their flirting, 
Women oft have envy shown ; 

Pleased to ruin 

Others wooing, 
Never happy in their own. — Gay. 



THE STATE RHYMED. 79 

What virtue or what mental grace 
But men unqualified and base 

Will boast it their possession ? 
Profusion apes the nobler part 
Of liberality of heart, 

And dulness of discretion.— Co wpee. 

Now and then this arrangement may be found in the 
counter form with th*e single line first : — 

If, in the days of song, 
The days of gladness, we have called on thee, 
When mirthful voices rang from sea to sea, 

And joyous hearts were strong ;' 
Now that alike the feeble and the brave 
Must cry, We perish ! — Father, hear, and save ! 

Mks. Hemans. 
Triplet roundel : — 

THE BKOOK. 

With pilgrim course I flow, 
Or in summer's scorching glow, 
Or o'er moonless wastes of snow, 

Nor stop, nor stay. 
For still by high behest 
To a bright abode of rest, 
To my parent Ocean's breast, 

I hasten away. — Oeant. 

Similar arrangement, but alternate rhymed throughout : — 

RURAL LIEE. 

Happy the man whose wish, whose care 

A few paternal acres bound, 
Content to breathe his native air 

In his own ground ; 
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, 

Whose flocks supply him with attire, 
Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
In winter, fire. — Pope. 

With many other forms of rhyming needless to cite, as 
Shelley's "The Two Spirits 5 ' to wit, where the rhymes of 
the triplets enchain; or Longfellow's "Afternoon in Febru- 
ary," where the third line in both trios is left unrhymed. 



80 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Quatrain roundel (this variety is not so frequently found 

as the above) : — 

On the ground 
Sleep sound ; 
I'll apply 
To your eye, 
Gentle lover, remedy. 

When thou wakest, 
Thou takest 
True delight 
In the sight 
Of thy former lady's eye. — Shakspeare. 

THE CID'S FUNERAL PROCESSION. 

The Moor had "beleaguered Valencia's towers, 
And lances gleamed up through her citron bowers, 
And the tents of the desert had girt her plain, 
And camels were trampling the vines of Spain. 
For the Cid was gone to his rest. 

There were men from the wilds where the death-wind sweeps, 
There were spears from the hills where the lion sleeps, 
There were bows from sands where the ostrich runs, 
For the shrill horn of Afric had called her sons 

To the battles of the West.— Mrs. Hemans. 

Occasionally there are three single lines in the stave, one 
at both beginning and end ; sometimes, too, the roundel for- 
mation is used continuously, that is, not arranged into staves 
at all. 

(4.) In another group may be put those which consist of a 
quatrain, or other simple arrangement, and appended couplet 
— a very common form, which may be termed partlet 

Rarely, rarely, comest thou, 

Spirit of delight ! 
Wherefore hast thou left me now 

Many a day and night ? 
Many a weary night and day 
? Tis since thou hast fled away. — Shelley. 



THE STAVE RHYMED. 81 

Look the world's comforter, with weary gait, 
His day's hot task has ended in the west : 

The owl, night's herald, shrieks, — 'tis very late ; 
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest ; 

And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light 

Do summon us to part and bid good night. — Shakspeare. 

To matter or to force 

The All is not confined ; 
Beside the law of things 

Is set the law of mind ; 
One speaks in rock and star, 
And one within the brain, 
In unison at times, 
And then apart again ; 
And both in one have brought us hither, 
That we may know our whence and whither. 

F. T. Palgrave. 

The world's a bubble, and the life of man 

Less than a span : 
In his conception wretched, from the womb 

So to the tomb ; 
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years 

With cares and fears. 
Who then to frail mortality shall trust, 
But limns on water, or but writes in dust. — Lord Bacon. 

Instead of a couplet a closing triplet is now and then met 
with, as in Jean Ingelow's piece, 'The High Tide on the 
Coast of Lincolnshire.' 

(5.) Often in a stave or otherwise a short line is interjected 
as a refrain. Any great difference of length between alternate 
lines has, as before stated, the same effect. 

God save our gracious King, 
Long live our noble King, 

God save the King ! 
Send him victorious, 
Happy and glorious, 
Long to reign over us, 

God save the King ! — H. Carey. 



82 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

The next is a form peculiar to Burns, 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 
Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 
For I maun crush among the stoure 

Thy slender stem ; 
To spare thee now is past my power, 

Thou bonnie gem. 

And here is a form that might have been classed as a 
roundel, and small harm done. These double possibilities do 
not fail to add to the perplexity of grouping. 

Yes, the year is growing old, 

And his eye is pale and bleared ! 
Death, with frosty hand and cold, 

Plucks the old man by the beard, 
Sorely, sorely ! 
The leaves are falling, falling, 

Solemnly and slow : 
Caw, caw, the rooks are calling; 

It is a sound of woe, 

A sound of woe ! — Longfellow. 

THE RAVEN. 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, 
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before. 
i Surely,' said I, ' surely that is something at my window lattice ; 
Let me see then what thereat is, and this mystery explore — 
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore : 

'Tis the wind, and nothing more.' 
Open here I flung the shutter, when with many a flirt and flutter, 
In there flew a saintly Eaven of the saintly days of yore. 
Not the least obeisance made he ; not a minute stopped or stayed he j 
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— 
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door — 

Perched and sat, and nothing more. — Edgar A. Poe. 

(6.) Couplet alternated with couplet of another sort some- 
times occurs. 

A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE. 

A rose once grew within 

A garden April-green, 
In her loneness, in her loneness, 
And the fairer for that oneness. — Mrs. Browning. 



THE STAVE RHYMED. 83 

SANTA FIL0MENA. 

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought, 
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, 

Our hearts in glad surprise, 

To higher levels rise. 

The tidal wave of deeper souls 
Into our inmost being rolls, 

And lifts us unawares 

Gut of all meaner cares. — Longfellow. 

Couplet and triplet joined, much the same arrangement in 
its nature, may be cited together with these. 

Go, happy Rose, and interwove 

With other flowers, bind my love. 
Tell her too, she must not be 
Longer flowing, longer free, 
That so oft has fettered me. — Heeeick. 

(7.) It is not uncommon to find a certain number of verses 
interposed between two shorter outer ones. 

EEELECTION. 

Ah ! who has power to say, 
To-morrow's sun shall warmer glow, 
And o'er this gloomy vale of woe 

Diffuse a brighter ray ? — Robinson. 

THE GIFTS OF GOD. 

When God at first made man, 
Having a glass of blessings standing by ; 
' Let us,' said he, i pour on him all we can : 
Let the world's riches which dispersed lie 

Contract into a span.' — G. Heebeet. 

Similar, save that the intermediate lines are four, is Mrs. 
Browning's piece entitled K A Song against Singing.' 

In the next the character is entirely that of a refrain alike at 
opening and close. 

In those sweet times, 
When o'er me childhood shed its purple light, 
The world seemed some vast garden faerie bright, 
Through which my spirit wandered plucking flowers, 
Under fair skies and sunshine-laden hours ) 
g2 



84 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

And many a fancy garland then I twined, 
And many a hope divine employed my mind, 
In those sweet times. 

All the long day, 
In sunshine would I sit near some old tree, 
Dreaming o'er Tasso's gorgeous minstrelsy, 
Of towers, and silver lutes, and ladyes gay, 
Of tilt and tournament, and knightly fray, 
And songs, old songs, the music of the soul — 
Those thoughts across my busy brain would roll 

All the long day. — E. V. Kenealy. 

(8.) Besides the forms reserved as better coming in under 
following sections, there are a certain amount of variants from 
groups already given, caused by having one line or more 
longer or shorter than the rest, of which it seems proper to 
instance a selection. 

Variation on triplet from this cause : — 

Whoe'er she be, 

That not impossible She 

That shall command my heart and me ; 

Where'er she lie, 

Locked up from mortal eye 

In shady leaves of destiny. — R. Crashaw. 

Variation on quatrain from ditto, last line cut short : — 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 

Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
All are but ministers of Love, 

And feed his sacred flame. — S. T. Coleridge. 

Another form ditto : — 

(5) Thou in the moon's bright chariot, proud and gay 
(4) Dost thy bright wood of stars survey, 

And all the year dost with thee bring 

(6) Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring. 

Cowley. 

The variations on longer pieces are infinite, but a few must 
suffice. 

Loudly through the wide-flung door 
Came the roar 
Of the sea upon the skerry, 



THE STAVE RHYMED. 85 

And its thunder loud and near 
Reached the ear, 
Mingling with their voices merry. — Longfellow. 

Living child or pictured cherub, 

Ne'er o'ermatched its baby grace ; 
And the mother moving nearer, 

Looked it calmly in the face, 
Then with slight and quiet gesture, 

And with lips that scarcely smiled, 
Said — ( A portrait of my daughter 

When she was a child.' — Jean Ingelow. 

(4) Out of the bosom of the Air, 

(5) Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, 
(4) Over the woodlands brown and bare, 

Over the harvest-fields forsaken, 

(3) Silent and soft and slow 

(2) Descends the snow. — Longeellow. 

The next has the same general structure, only instead of 
shortening the closing couplet runs out. 

(4) Fair rising from her icy couch, 

Wan herald of the floral year, 
The snowdrop marks the spring's approach, 
Ere yet the primrose groups appear, 
(o) Or peers the arum from its spotted veil, 

(6) Or odorous violets scent the cold capricious gale. 

Charlotte Smith. 



XL 

This chapter is a continuation of the last, divided from it 
on account of the length of the subject more than from any- 
other cause, but as a whole the forms treated are longer. 

(1.) The five-lined stave. In this length the first, third, 
and fourth lines generally rhyme together, or as here the first 
remains unrhymed. 

Othere the old sea-captain 

Who dwelt in Helgoland, 
To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, 
Brought a snow-white walrus tooth, 

Which he held in his brown right hand. 



86 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

His figure was tall and stately, 

Like a boy's his eye appeared ; 
His hair was yellow as hay, 
But threads of a silvery grey 

Gleamed in his tawny beard. — Longfellow. 

If the rest of the lines are of four feet the last one most 
usually falls to three beats only. 

The gorse is yellow on the heath 
The banks with speedwell flowers are gay, 

The oaks are budding, and beneath 

The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath, 

The silver wreath of May. — Chaelotte Smith. 

In the following, lines two and five are alike short. 

How sweet the answer Echo makes 

To music at night, 
When roused by lute or horn she wakes, 
And far away o'er lawn and lakes 

Goes answering light ! — T. Mooee. 

Another arrangement is this, with the short commencing. 

Go, lovely Rose ! 
Tell her that wastes her time and me, 

That now she knows, 
When I resemble her to thee, 
How sweet and fair she seems to be. — Waller. 

In the following we have reduplication of the second line, 
the result resembling out-about with an additional line. 

Palaces with golden domes, 

Marble fanes, and silver towers, 

Gardens glittering with flowers, 
Where sweet Aphrodite roams 

All the livelong summer hours. — Kenealy. 

Many of these forms are again found as components of 
longer stanzas. 

(2.) Among other methods conclusion of a stave is in a few 
cases made to consist of one or more unrhymed lines, con- 
trasting with the others. 



THE STAVE RHYMED. 87 

Oh, come and see this lovelet, 

This little turtle-dovelet, 

The maidens that are neatest, 

And tenderest and sweetest, 

Should buy it to amuse 'em, 

And nurse it in their bosom. 

The little pet ! young loves to sell ! 

My pretty loves who'll buy ? — Aytoun. 

Though the above is a direct exception to the contrary, 
lines so circumstanced are generally odd-over, which tends 
greatly to obviate rhyme tendency. 

Thora of Eimol ! hide me ! hide me ! 

Danger and shame and death betide me ! 

For Olaf the King is hunting me down, 

Through field and forest, through thorp and town ! 

Thus cried Jarl Hakon 

To Thora, the fairest of women. — Longfellow. 

In the roundel form also the single lines are in rare in- 
stances left unrhymed. 

And up came the goblins that moment, and they 
Look ghostly and grewsome, and ghastly and grey, 

Yet they revel and riot it roundly. 
The beer it has vanished, the pitchers are bare, 
Then whooping and hooting away through the air, 

O'er hill and dale clatter the weird ones. 

Theodore Martin. 

So also in triplets Campbell's piece entitled ' Hohenlinden.' 
In the following we have a two-foot quick measure closed 
by a line of three feet unrhymed in. 
And the pedlar answered, 
From beneath his load, 
At noon they went streaming 

Eight o'er my road. 
From the farmsteads the lassies 

Rushed out to see 
How they skimmed like swallows 

Over plough and lea. 
As they went to the hills 

What a head they bare ! 
Like a snowdrift scudding 
On the stormy sea, 
And where were the steeds could o'ertake them ? — Shairp. 



88 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

(3.) Longer stanzas consist very generally of unions of 
the shorter forms previously passed in review ; thus this, a 
quatrain between two couplets. 

j 'Tis evening : on Abruzzo's hill 
\ The summer's sun is lingering still, 
"As though unwilling to bereave 

The landscape of its softest beam ; — 
So fair, — one can but look and grieve, 

To think that like a lovely dream 

(A few brief fleeting moments more 
Must see its reign of beauty o'er ! — Alaric Watts. 

Gray's 6 Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College,' consists 
of a quatrain and roundel conjoined. Again, we find others 
composed of two quatrains differently rhymed, and so on. 
But by no means are stanzas always put together in parts 
like these, though as in the next a single line doing duty in 
common at the supposed junction is often the sole cause 
otherwise. 

Weighed in the balance, hero dust 

Is vile as vulgar clay ; 
Thy scales, Mortality, are just 

To all that pass away. 
But yet methought the living great 
Some higher sparks should animate, 

To dazzle and dismay ; 
Nor deemed contempt could thus make mirth 
Of these the conquerors of the earth. — Byron. 

The following arrangement is one found with tolerable 
frequency. 

And yet, the soul-awakening gleam, 

That struck perchance the farthest cone 
Of Scotland's rocky wilds, did seem 

To visit me and me alone ; 
Me unapproached by any friend, 
Save those who to my sorrows lend 
Tears due unto their own. — Wordsworth. 

A stanza of good presence and repute is that used by 
Byron in his ' Don Juan/ five-foot march, three rhymes of 
a sort alternated together, closed by a couplet. 



THE STAYE EHYMED. 89 

I know not why, but in that hour to-night, 
Even as they gazed, a sudden tremor came 

And swept as 'twere across their hearts' delight, 
Like the wind o'er a harpstring, o'er a flame, 

When one is shook in sound and one in sight ; 

And thus some boding flashed through either frame, 

And called from Juan's breast a faint low sigh, 

While one new tear arose in Haidee's eye. 

H. H. Milman adopts the following form in a succession 
of stanzas. 

God of the thunder, from whose cloudy seat 

The fiery winds of desolation blow : 
Father of vengeance, that with purple feet, 

Like a full wine-press, treadst the vale below : 
/The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay, 

T 



i 



Nor springs the beast of havoc on his prey, 
Nor withering Famine walks his blasted way, 
Till Thou the guilty land hast sealed for woe. 



A certain arrangement of five-foot verse in stanzas of 
fourteen lines has received the distinctive name of sonnet. 
The rhymes may be in any order with the limitation that 
there be only three different endings rhymed on in the first 
eight lines. 

My lute, be as thou wert when thou did grow 
With thy green mother in some shady grove, 
When unmelodious winds had made thee move, 

And birds their romage did on thee bestow. 

Since that dear voice which did thy sounds approve, 

Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow, 
Is reft from earth to tune the spheres above. 

What art thou then but harbinger of woe ? 
Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more, 

But orphan wailings to the fainting ear, 

Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear, 
For which be silent as in woods before : 

Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, 

Like widowed turtle still her loss complain. — Deummond. 

Here, indeed, there are but two rhyme-endings within 
the prescribed limits, but it seems there is no regulation 



90 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

against that. Shakspeare, again, invariably constructs his 
sonnets of three quatrains quite separate in their rhymes, 
ending the whole with a couplet : let all, then, please them- 
selves in the matter, as their predecessors have done before 
them. 

(4.) It may not be amiss to group together a certain class 
of stanzas that have an additional line final drawn out be- 
yond the others to six-foot length, forming what is com- 
monly known as an Alexandrine. 

ODE TO THE SKYLAKK. 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart, 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest 
Like a cloud of fire ; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

Shelley. 

prince 0e the pukple island. 

Look at the sun, whose ray and searching light 

Here, there, and everywhere itself displays, 
No nook or corner flies his piercing sight ; 
Yet on himself when he reflects his rays 
Soon back he flings the too bold venturing gleam, 
Down to the earth the flames all broken stream ; 
Such is this famous Prince, — such his unpierced beam. 

Fletcher. 

Spenser, in the well-known measure called after his name, 
has used a stanza of nine lines, all likewise of five feet ex- 
cept the closing one. The rhymes are thus arranged, as the 
example will best show : — 1 and 2 ; 2, 4, 5, and 7 ; 6, 8, 
and 9. This form is used by some even for the highest epic 
occasions, and, indeed, of stanzas for such a purpose it has 
few if any to rival it. 



THE STAVE EHTMED. 91 

THE ENCHANTED GROUND. 

Eftsoons they heard a most melodious sound 
Of all that mote delight a dainty ear, 
Such as at once might not on living ground, 
Save in this paradise be held elsewhere : 
Right hard it was for wight which did it hear 
To rede what manner music that mote he : 
For all that pleasing is to living ear 
Was there consorted in one harmony, 
Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree. — Spenser. 

Of course there is no innate necessity that such a long 
final line should always be of six feet precisely ; here is one 
of eight. 

THE LOST BOWER. 

I rose up in exaltation 
And an inward trembling heat, 
And it seemed in geste of passion 
Dropped the music to my feet, 
Like a garment rustling downwards ! — such a silence followed it. 

Mrs. Browning. 

(5.) There remains to notice the stanzas which have their 
parts composed of different runs, as this beginning in march- 
metre, closed with a couplet tripping. 

eairt's song. 

Come follow, follow me, 
Ye fairy elves that be ; 
Light tripping o'er the green, 
Come follow Mab, your queen ! 
Hand in hand we'll dance around, 
For this place is fairy ground. 

The lines being short the change in this instance is hardly 
noticeable ; in the next example, longer in part, the effect can 
hardly be called pleasing. 

On his morning rounds the master 

Goes to learn how all things fare ; 
Searches pasture after pasture, 

Sheep and cattle eyes with care ; 



92 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

And for silence or for talk 

He hath comrades in his walk ; 
Four dogs, each pair of different breed, 
Distinguished two for scent, and two for speed. 

Wordsworth. 

In Shelley's 6 Ode to the Skylark,' quoted a little previously 
a like turn results in a charming effect, but it must be observed 
that in this the change is an imperceptible one; in the degree 
that it strikes it displeases. Hence, the greater the difference 
between the metres the worse the impression, the change from 
one to the other becoming hard to fall in with, the two seem 
to clash, and there is a perceptible discordance, as here. 

Mahadeh earth's lord descending 

To its mansions comes again, 
That like man with mortals blending, 

He may feel their joy and pain ; 
Stoops to try life's varied changes, 

And with human eyes to see, 
Ere he praises or avenges, 
What their fitful lot may be. 
He has passed through the city, he has looked on them all ; 
He has watched o'er the great, nor forgotten the small, 
And at evening went forth on his journey so free. — Aytoun. 

The change in this case is seen to be extreme, and the 
antagonism consequently very striking. 

This condemnation of the undue junction of discordant 
parts in a set stave must not be held to reflect on the allow- 
able blending in the greater ode, to be noticed shortly, where 
see end of chapter xiv. 



XII. 

THE LAY. 



In one stanzic measure the rhymes are allowed to assume 
every possible variation of arrangement, the lines generally of 
two slightly different lengths, one predominant, the stanzas 



THE LAY. 93 

themselves varying greatly in the number of lines. It is 
proposed to restrict the name lay exclusively to formations 
of this kind, which indeed have to it almost a native title 
existing. 

Nearly every form of stave previously cited here finds itself 
embodied in longer complicate stanzas; again, almost any 
combination met with in the lay is found used in independent 
form. 

1. To begin with march-metre. 

The standard length for the predominant line is four feet, 
for the other three ; with stanzas varying from about sixteen 
lines to three times that length. 

An arrangement similar to the lay is to be met with in the 
short form of three and two feet following, but ditty might 
be tne more appropriate name than lay in this particular in- 
stance. 

Make no deep scrutiny 
Into her mutiny 

Hash and undutiful ; 
Past all dishonour, 
Death has left on her 
Only the beautiful. 

Still for all slips of hers, 

One of Eve's family, 
Wipe those poor lips of hers 

Oozing so clammily. 

Loop up her tresses 

Escaped from the comb, 
Her fair auburn tresses, 
Whilst wonderment guesses 

Where was her home ? 
Who was her father ? 

Who was her mother ? 
Had she a sister ? 

Had she a brother ? 
Or was there a dearer one 
Still, and a nearer one 

Yet, than all other?— Hood. 

Macaulay in his lays has used a three-foot measure, varied 
by occasional lines of four. 



94 ENGLISH YEKSIFICATION. 

The horsemen and the footmen 

Are pouring in amain, 
From many a stately market-place ; 

From many a fruitful plain ; 
From many a lonely hamlet 

Which hid by beech and pine, 
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest 

Of purple Apennine. 
# # # * # # * 

Meanwhile the Tuscan army, 

Right glorious to behold, 
Came flashing back the noonday light, 
Hank behind rank like surges bright 

Of a broad sea of gold. 
Four hundred trumpets sounded 

A peal of warlike glee 
As that great host with measured tread, 
And spears advanced and ensigns spread, 
Rolled slowly towards the bridge's head, 

Where stood the dauntless Three. 

Scott is the best exemplifier of the standard form of the 
lay, as in his ' Lady of the Lake,' ' Marmion,' ' Lay of the Last 
Minstrel,' &c. 

Next morn the Baron climbed the tower, 
To view afar the Scottish power, 

Encamped on Flodden edge : 
The white pavilions made a show, 
Like remnants of the winter snow, 

Along the dusky ridge. 
Long Marmion looked ; — at length his eye 
Unusual movement might descry 

Amid the shifting lines : 
The Scottish host drawn out appears, 
And flashing on the edge of spears, 

The eastern sunbeam shines. 
Their front now deepening, now extending; 
Their flank inclining, wheeling, bending, 
Now drawing back and now descending, 
The skilful Marmion well could know 
They watched the motions of some foe 
Who traversed on the plain below. 

The lay, among its other variations, occasionally allows 
quick-foot intermixture as freely as this. 



THE LAY. 95 

If tlion wouldst view fair Melrose aright, 

Go visit it by tlie pale moonlight ; 

For the gay "beams of lightsome day 

Gild but to flout the ruins gray. 

When the broken arches are black in night, 

And each shafted oriel glimmers white ; 

When the cold lights uncertain shower 

Streams on the ruined central tower; 

When buttress and buttress alternately, 

Seemed framed of ebon and ivory ; 

When silver edges the imagery, 

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die. 



Or again, 

Merrily, merrily goes the bark 

On a breeze from the northward free, 
So shoots from the morning-sky the lark, 

Or the swan through the summer-sea. 
The shores of Mull on the eastward lay, 
And Ulva dark, and Colonsay, 
And all the group of islets gray 

That guard famed Staffa round. 
When all unknown its columns rose, 
Where dark and undisturbed repose 

The cormorant had found. 

It admits even a succession of triplets. 

And art thou cold and lowly laid, 
The foeman's dread, the people's aid, 
Breadalbane's boast, Clan-Alpine's shade ! 
For thee shall none a requiem say ? 
For thee, who loved the minstrel's lay, — 
For thee, of Both well's house the stay, 
The shelter of her exiled line, 
E'en in this prison-house of thine, 
I'll weep for Alpine's honoured pine. 

Verses of five and four feet are occasionally found in the 
same admixture, though not often. The odes of Pindar have 
been done into English verse of this description by Abraham 
Moore, from which the subjoined. This writer admits an oc- 
casional verse of six feet also. 



96 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Their past Olympic feats have graced my song; 

The future in their joyous day, 

Hopes, promise, shall the muse display : 
But fortunes and events to heaven belong. 
Smile but their natal genius from above, 
The rest to Mars we'll trust and ruling Jove. 

Yet must I name their Pythian boughs, 
Their wreaths from Thebes, from Argos brought: 

And Jove's Lycsean altar knows 
Their countless wonders in Arcadia got. 

2. If the lay were formed in tripping metre, a kind of 
verse used at large by no poet yet, it would comprise, among 
others, such forms as these. 

All are sleeping, weary heart ! 

Thou, thou only, sleepless art ! 
[All this throbbing, all this aching, 
"} Evermore shall keep thee waking, 
^For a heart in sorrow breaking 

Thinketh ever of its smart ! 

Couldst thou look as dear as when 

First I sighed for thee, 
Couldst thou make me feel again 
Ev'ry wish I breathed thee then, 

Oh how blissful life would be ! 
Hopes that now beguiling leave me, 

Joys that lie in slumbers cold, 
All would wake, couldst thou but give me 

One dear smile like those of old. — T. Moore. 

Soldier rest ! thy warfare o'er, 

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking ! 
Dream of battled fields no more, 

Days of danger, nights of waking, 
In our isle's enchanted hall, 

Hands unseen thy couch are strewing, 
Fairy strains of music fall, 

Every muse in slumber dewing. 
Soldier rest ! thy warfare o'er, 
Dream of fighting fields no more : 
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, 
. Morn of toil nor night of waking. — Scott. 

3. The Lay in Quick Metre. — If neither in quick metre 
the lay has much recognised standing, still it is convenient to 



THE LAY. 97 

group forms under, which otherwise must be presented as 
irregular varieties of stanza, on no principle whatever. 

Cold, by this, was the midnight air ; 

But the Abbot's blood ran colder, 
When he saw a gasping knight lie there, 
With a gash beneath his clotted hair, 

And a hump upon his shoulder. 

And the loyal churchman strove in vain 

To mutter a Pater Noster : 
For he who writhed in mortal pain, 
Was camped that night on Bosworth plain, 

The cruel Duke of Gloster. — Praed. 

The wine-month shone in its golden prime, 
And the red grapes clustering hung, 
But a deeper sound through the Switzer's clime, 
Than the vintage music rung — 
A sound through vaulted cave, 
A sound through echoing glen, 
Like the hollow swell of the rushing wave, — 

'Twas the tread of steel-girt men. — Mrs. Hemans. 

The war-note of the Saracen 

Was on the winds of France ; 
It had stilled the harp of the troubadour, 

And the clash of the tournay's lance. 
The sounds of the sea, and the sounds of the night, 
And the hollow echoes of charge and flight, 
Were around Clotilde, as she knelt to pray 
In a chapel where the mighty lay, 

On the old Provencal shore : 
Many a Chatillon beneath, 
Unstirred by the ringing trumpets' breath, 

His shroud of armour wore. 
But meekly the voice of the lady rose 
Through the trophies of their proud repose : 
And her fragile frame at every blast 
That full of the savage warhorn passed, 
Trembling, as trembles a bird's quick heart 
When it vainly strives from its cage to part, — 

So knelt she in her woe. — Mrs. Hemans. 



98 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

XIII. 

MID-EHYME FORMATIONS. 

Intermediate between continuous linear use and the stave, 
having connections with one and the other, according as 
written, may be cited formations produced by mid-rhyme. 

A line of seven feet may have two interior rhymes at the 
end of the second and fourth feet alike, as well as a different 
one at the close. 

THE NUT-BROWN MAID. 

Be it right or wrong, these men among, on women do complain, 

Affirming this, how that it is a labour spent in vain 

To love them well, for never a deal they love a man again ; 

For let a man do what he can their favour to attain, 

Yet if a new do them pursue, their first true lover then 

Laboureth for nought, for from her thought he is a banished man. 

I say not nay, but that all day it is both writ and said, 

That woman's faith is as who saith all utterly decayed ; 

But nevertheless right good witness in this case might be laid, 

That they love true and continue ; record the Nut-brown Maid ; 

Which from her love, when her to prove he came to make his moan, 

Would not depart, for in her heart she loved but him alone. 

This, like other seven feet formations, is more often written 
thus, having then a single mid-rhyme : — 

I sift the snow on the mountains below, 

And the great pines groan aghast ; 
And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, 

Lightning my pilot sits ; 
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 

It struggles and howls at fits. — Shelley, 

Sometimes certain stanzas of a ballad will have a mid- 
rhyme additional thus placed, others not, Coleridge's * An- 
cient Mariner ' is an instance. 

Btit a further subdivision following the membership is 



MID-RHYME FORMATION. 99 

perhaps more frequent still, bringing us to the form already 
familiar in roundel : — 

Arethusa arose 

From her couch of snows 
In the Acroceraunian mountains,— 

From cloud and from crag 

With many a jag, 
Shepherding her bright fountains. 

She leapt down the rocks 

With her rainbow locks 
Streaming among the streams ; — 

Her steps paved with green 

The downward ravine 
Which slopes to the western gleams. — Shelley. 

The connection between this shape and the ordinary line 
thus becomes apparent; at the same time it is seen necessary 
not to confuse the order of rhyming under notice with this 
particular way of writing it. From its enlivening effect in 
whatever mode arranged into verses, it might not be amiss to 
denominate this succession of rhymes speedwell. 

In a stave of four feet the rhymes may be three of a sort 
successive, thus : — 

If sadly thinking, with spirits sinkings 
Could more than drinking my cares compose, 
A cure for sorrow from sighs I'd borrow 
And hope to-morrow would end my woes. 
But as in wailing there's nought availing, 
And death unfailing will strike the blow. 
Then for that reason, and for a season, 
Let us be merry before we go ! — Cue-ran. 

But this third rhyme is not preserved on subdivision into 
the roundel : — 

may I steal 
Along the vale, 
Of humble life secure from foes ; 
My friends sincere, 
My judgment clear, 
And gentle business my repose.— Young. 

Verses may be so diversified by the single expedient of 
division at the mid-rhyme, as to assume the aspect of another 

IU OF fc H 2 



100 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

measure altogether, as in this used by Ingoldsby Barham, in 
his well-known Legends : — 

Out and spake Sir Ingoldsby Bray 
A stalwart knight I ween was he, 
1 Come east, come west, 
Come lance in rest, 
Come falchion in hand, I'll tackle the best 
Of all the Soldan's chivalrie ! ' 

Out and spake Sir Ingoldsby Bray : 

' What news ? what news ? come tell to me ! 

What news ? what news, thou little footpage ? 

I've been whacking the foe, till it seems an age 

Since I was in Ingoldsby Hall so free ! 

What news ? what news from Ingoldsby Hall ? 

Come tell me now, thou page so small ! ' 

' Oh hawk and hound 

Are safe and sound 
Beast in byre, and steed in stall ; 

And the watch- dog's bark, 

As soon as it's dark, 
Bays wakeful guard around Ingoldsby Hall.' 

The diversity introduced into the stave and stanza by the 
same expedient is equally notable. 

Come Hope, thou little cheating sprite, 
And let us set the quarrel right ) 

Come thou to me, 

Or I to thee, 
No matter so we both agree. — Cumbeeland. 

As here, it is generally used to form the close, where, with 
the concluding line, it is equivalent to a demi-roundel : — 

Once again the voice beside her sounded, 

Low and faint, and solemn was its tone — 
6 Nor by form nor by shade am I surrounded, 
Fleshly home and dwelling have I none. 
They are passed away — 
Woe is me ! to-day 
Hath robbed me of myself, and made me lone.' — Aytoot. 

More swift than lightning can I fly 

About their airy welkin soon, 
And in a minute's space descry 

Each thing that's done beneath the moon : 



MID-RHYME FORMATION. 101 

There's not a hag 

Or ghost shall wag, 
Or cry e Ware goblin !' where I go; 

But Eobin I 

Their feats will spy, 
And send them home with ho, ho, ho ! — Ben Jonson. 

In the next we have the mid-rhyme pair unequal, and sur- 
passing in some the average line, whence the shortening of 
the final line to make up, which however was not impera- 
tive. 

At anchor in Hampton roads we lay, 

On board of the Cumberland sloop of war : 
And at times from the fortress across the bay 
The alarum of drums swept past, 
Or a bugle blast 
From the camp on the shore. — Longfellow, 

In the following, though the line is left undivided, we have 
an approach to the out-about: — 

We are born of the golden Sun, 
Of the Star, of the Wave, of Air, 
Of the Flowers of Light, that make earth bright, 
As though it an Elysium were. 

We soar on the wide serene, 
We float o'er the eyes of earth, 
We dance in the beam, on the flashing stream, 
And sing round the Poet's birth. — E. V. Kenealy. 

To conclude with a piece of which the long ballad swing is 
hardly to be surpassed. 

Up the long broomy loan, wi' mickle dool and moan, 

And out upon the hillside track, 
Nurse Flory forward bent, crooning as she went, 

With the wee bairn clinging on her back. 

But Moira hand in hand with Marion forward ran, 

Nor dool, nor any care had they, 
But they chased the heather bee, and they sang aloud for glee, 

As they hied up the mountain way. — J. C. Shairp. 



102 - ENGLISH VEKSIFICATION. 

XIV. 

KEMAINING FORMS OF THE ODE. 

The following specimens as distinguished from others be- 
fore treated, with the exception of the lay, are more diver- 
sified in form and aspect, gradually becoming still further 
so in the higher varieties, till at length resemblance between 
one stanza and another is not even aimed at. 

The shorter forms that remain have generally something 
fantastic, or at least individual, in their structure, which re- 
moves them from others. 

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see 

You haste away so soon ; 
As yet the early rising sun 

Has not attained his noon. 
Stay, stay, 

Until the hasting day 
Has run, 

But to the evensong ; 
And having prayed together, we 

Will go with you along. — Heeeick. 

Another little fanciful piece, addressed by the same poet 
to ' Blossoms' : — 

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, 

Why do ye fall so fast ? 

Your date is not so past, 
But you may stay yet here awhile, 
To blush and gently smile 

And go at last. 

Arise, arise, arise ! 
There is "blood on earth that denies ye bread ; 

Be your wounds like eyes 
To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead. 

I What other griefs were it just to pay ? 
Your sons, your wives, your brethren were they ; 
Who said they were slain on the battle-day ? — Shelley. 



REMAINING^ FORMS OF THE ODE. 103 

That time is dead for ever, child, 
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever ; 
We look on the past 
And stare aghast 
At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, 
Of hopes which thou and I beguiled 

To death on Life's dark river. — Shelley. 

The next approaches more to the lay, save that the short 
lines are of two lengths : — 

King Christian stood besides the mast j 

Smoke, mixt with flame, 
Hung o'er his guns, that rattled fast 
Against the Gothman, as they passed, 
Then sunk each hostile sail and mast 

In smoke and flame. 
' Fly/ said the foe, ' fly all that can, 
Nor wage with Denmark's Christian, 

The dread unequal game.' — G-. Borrow, 

Milton's ' Ode on the Nativity ' is but a roundel closed by 
an unequal couplet : — 

Such music as, 'tis said, 

Before was never made, 
But when of old the sons of morning sung, 

While the Creator great 

His constellations set, 
And the well balanced world on hinges hung, 

And cast the dark foundations deep, 

And bid the weltering waves their oozy channels keep. 

The next is a double quatrain of unusual length of 
line: — 

(5) Away, away ! to thy sad and silent home, 

Pour bitter tears on its desolated earth, 
Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come, 

(6) And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth. 

(7) The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head ; 

(6) The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet ; 

But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead, 

(7) Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou and peace 

may meet. — Shelley. 

The following ode to the nightingale would be regular five 
foot but for one line cut short. In rhymes it is a quatrain 



104 ENGLISH VERIFICATION. 

succeeded by the unusual arrangement of three single lines 
together, pairing three consecutive after them. 

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 

One minute past, and Lethewards had sunk: 
'Tis not through enyy of thy happy lot, 
But "being too happy in thy happiness, 

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, 
In some melodious plot, 
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 

Singest of summer in full-throated ease. — Keats. 

BATTLE 0E THE BALTIC. 

Of Nelson and the North, 

Sing the glorious day's renown, 

"When to battle fierce came forth 

All the might of Denmark's crown, 

And her arms along the deep proudly shone; 

By each gun the lighted brand, 

In a bold determined hand, 

And the prince of all the land 

Led them on. 

Like leviathans afloat 

Lay their bulwarks on the brine ; 

While the sign of battle flew 

On the lofty British line ; 

It was ten of April morn by the chime : 

As they drifted on their path, 

There was silence deep as death ; 

And the boldest held his breath 

For a time. — Campbell. 

In the following observe the forceful effect of the allitera- 
tion in the lines, already remarkable by being in a run 
different from the others ; also observe the progressive length- 
ening out of the stanza onward. 

THE BAEB. 

i Buin seize thee, ruthless King ! (^ip) 

Confusion on thy banners wait! 
Though fanned by Conquest's crimson wing, 
They mock the air with idle state. 



EEMAININa FORMS OF THE ODE. 105 

Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail, (trip) 

Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail 
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, 
Prom Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears.' 
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride 
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay, 
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side 
He wound, with toilsome march, his long array, 
Stout Gloster stood aghast, in speechless trance ; 
1 To arms ! ' cried Mortimer, and couched his quivering lance. 

Gray. 

When the lines of an ode are very diversified in lengthy 
and there is great inequality between different stanzas, both 
in this respect and in the number of verses, it is customary 
to call the ode Pindaric, though irregular would be the much 
more appropriate term, for the arrangement followed by 
Pindar of set strophes and anti-strophes, whether observed or 
not, is utterly out of court in English. 

The irregular ode is mostly written in stanzas varying from 
fourteen to twenty-eight lines, the rhymes arranged in any 
way thought fit, and between lines of length most different ; 
indeed, irregularity in rhyming, as in other points, may be 
said to be the rule. 

The next, however, though so very irregular, yet preserves 
the same form through every stanza. 

Hear the sledges with the bells, 
Silver bells ! 
"What a world of merriment their melody foretells! 
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, 

In the icy air of night ! 
While the stars that over-sprinkle 
All the heavens seem to twinkle 

With a crystalline delight ; 
Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Runic rhyme 
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells 
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 

Edgar Poe. 



106 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Like as this piece indicates in its movement the chiming 
of bells, so does the following < Milking Song,' or cow-call, 
the open monotonous note of a horn appropriate : — 

'Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!' calling, 
1 For the dews will soon be falling ; 
Leave your meadow grasses mellow, 

Mellow, mellow; 
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow, 
Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot ; 
Quit the stalks of parsley hollow, 

Hollow, hollow ; 
Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow, 

From the clovers lift your head ; 
Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot, 
Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow, 

Jetty, to the milking shed.'— Jean Ingelow. 

milton's allegro. 

This poem begins thus irregularly, and then merges into 
lines of four-feet trip and march interchangeable, in which it 
continues to the end : — 

Hence, loathed Melancholy, 
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, 

In Stygian cave forlorn, 
' Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy ! 

Find out some uncouth cell, 
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealDus wings. 

And the night-raven sings ; 
There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks, 

As ragged as thy locks, 
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 
But come, thou goddess fair and free, 
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, 
And by men heart-easing Mirth ; 
Whom lovely Venus at a birth, &c. 

ODE TO THE PASSIONS. 

The body of this poem is of the nature of the piece sub- 
joined, but it has a fore and after stanza of almost regular 
four-feet : — 



REMAINING FOKMS OF THE ODE. 107 

But thou, Hope, with eyes so fair, 

What was thy delighted measure ? 

Still it whispered promised pleasure, 
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ! 

Still would her touch the strain prolong, 
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, 

She called on Echo still through all her song ; 

And when her sweetest theme she chose, 

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, 
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair. 

And longer had she sung — but, with a frown, 

Revenge impatient rose : 
He threw his bloodstained sword in thunder down, 

And, with a withering look, 

The war-denouncing trumpet took, 
And blew a blast so loud and dread 
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe ! 

And ever and anon he beat 

The doubling drum with furious heat ; 
And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, 

Dejected Pity at his side, &c. — Collins. 

Alexander's feast. 

This, the most varied and the most elevated of all odes, 
should by rights be quoted in full, deserving of study as it is 
throughout, and more illustrative in the changeful variety of 
its metre than any other ; but less must suffice. 

' Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won 
By Philip's warlike son : 
Aloft in awful state 
The godlike hero sate 
On his imperial throne. 
His valiant peers were placed around, 
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound \ 
So should desert in arms be crowned. 
The lovely Thais by his side, 
Sat like a blooming Eastern bride, 
In flower of youth, and beauty's pride. 
Happy, happy, happy pair ! 
None but the brave, 
None but the brave, 
None but the brave deserve the fair. 



108 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Now strike the golden lyre again : 
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain. 

Break his bands of sleep asunder, 
And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder. 
Hark, hark ! the horrid sound 
Has raised up his head 
As awaked from the dead, 
And amazed he stares around. 
Revenge, revenge ! Timotheus cries, 
See the Furies arise, 
See the snakes that they rear, 
How they hiss in their hair. 
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes ! 
Behold a ghastly band, 
Each a torch in his hand ; 
These are Grecian ghosts that in battle were slain, 
And unburied remain, 
Inglorious on the plain ; 
Give the vengeance due ' 
To the valiant crew : 
Behold how they toss their torches on high ! 
How they point to the Persian abodes, 
And glittering temples of their hostile gods ! — 
The princes applaud with a furious joy, 
And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy ; 
Thai's led the way 
To light him to his prey, 
And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.- — Detden. 

m no ode in the whole language is the change of numbers 
so well and dexterously managed as in this, the entire gamut 
of quick and slow feet being run together without the least 
hitch or strain. 

Where, as here, irregular stanzas affect to abandon their 
own control to impulse, it is not too much to expect that the 
variations of tone employed should, as in this specimen, show 
sufficient poetic cause, the movement being put under exclu- 
sive control of the sense. 



REVERT. 109 

XV. 

REVERT. 

The slight metrical importance of this measure, the repre- 
sentative of the ancient dactyl, was stated when first the 
rhythm was named. It only exists at all under sharply 
defined conditions. 

It is found that when a member of three feet opens with 
what has been called the strong beginning, which puts the 
first accents three apart, while in the next, and only other 
foot, they approach a syllable nearer, that from this propin- 
quity the latter accent is so proportionally weakened, the 
first and second monopolise the stress between them, and so 
doing make their expression in the backward rhythm. 

This effect, however, by no means takes place where such a 
member is only casual in the rhythm running the other way, as 

6 Mucli must remain unthought.' 

Complete the line, c and more untold, 5 and no longer any 
doubt of which is the correct run is possible. 

But in a succession of lines of the character described the 
reversion is most marked and distinct. 

But when I older grew, 
Joining a corsair's crew, 
O'er the dark sea I flew, 
With the marauders* 

Wild was the life we led ; 
Many the souls that sped, 
Many the hearts that bled, 

By our stern orders. — Longkfellow. 

The short lines, it is seen, consort very well with the 
others under the influence of their attraction ; but by them- 
selves they are too short to have any determinable run ; their 
scanning as they stand alone may be made as well in one way 
p-s another. 



110 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

I am the God Thor, 
I am the War God, 
I am the Thunderer ! 
Here in my Northland, 
My fastness and fortress, 
Reign I for ever ! 

Here amid icebergs 

Rule I the nations : 

This is my hammer, 

Miolner the mighty ; 

Giants and sorcerers 

Cannot withstand it. — Longfellow. 

The combinations of the two members in longer lines is 
exemplified in the next piece. 

The two first lines not having the cesura immediately pre- 
vious to the third accent are in a different run to the rest. 

The next two long lines are simply equivalent to one of 
the long and one of the short conjoined, side by side, and the 
reversion is maintained throughout. 

Had I a cave on some wild distant shore, 

Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar ; 

There would I weep my woes, 

There seek my last repose, 

Till grief my eyes should close, 
Ne'er to wake more. 
Falsest of womankind ! canst thou declare 
All my fond plighted vows— fleeting as air f 

To thy new lover hie, 

Laugh o'er thy perjury, 

Then in thy bosom try 

What peace is there ! — Btjkns. 

Stars of the summer night ! 

Far in your azure deeps, 
Hide, hide your golden light ! 

She sleeps ! 

My lady sleeps! 

Sleeps ! 

Moon of the summer night ! 

Far down yon western steeps, 
Sink, sink, in silver light ! 

She sleeps 

My lady sleeps 

Sleeps ! — Longfellow. 



BEVERT. Ill 

In the next some of the verses appear to run one way, 
some the other, determination resting with cesural contin- 
gencies, the four lines marked having the break immediately 
after the sixth syllable, and before the third accent, are quali- 
fied to rank as revert, the others not, unless purposely so 
constrained. 

Backward, turn backward, oh Time, in your flight, 

* Make me a child again just for to-night, 
Mother, come back from the echoless shore, 
Take me again to your heart as of yore, 
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, 

* Smoothe the few silver threads out of my hair> 
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep, 

* Hock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep, 

* Watch o'er thy child, mother, rock me to sleep. 

It is by no means wished to be asserted that the above is 
in two different metres, but that the revert is a form to which 
verses of a certain construction have a tolerable leaning, so 
much so that there is no violence done in accounting them 
that way, rather the contrary. In mixed instances like the 
last the choice lies open, and any reader personally decides 
for the one or the other as he gives the intonation. 

A hover in the last place from the mental desire of connect- 
ing an accent therewith, consequently making a revert foot 
in that place, will, from attraction, have a tendency to assimi- 
late the preceding part of the line to the same run if the 
structure favour, as in the two prior lines of the following 
stave. Under this ruling, each of the lines indicated becomes 
of four feet revert regular. 

Glaucon of Lesbos, the son of Euphorion, 
Burned for Corinna the blue- eyed Milesian ) 

Nor father nor mother had she \ 

Beauty and wealth had the orphan. 

Short was the wooing, and fixed was the wedding-day, 
Nuptial dues paid to the Fates, and to Artemis : 
But envy not lovers their bliss, 
Brief is the bliss of a mortal.— Bttlwek Lttton. 

If it be conceded that this is the natural run of these verses 
it renders them incapable of harmonious connection with 



112 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

the other part of the stave, which is decidedly in the 
forward run. 

To obviate such disaccordance, one inclines on the whole to 
order the entire stanza on the forward run, though the con- 
flicting tendencies create a sort of dubiousness. It may be 
remarked that had the third line opened with the strong 
beginning as the fourth does, the rhythmic connection of 
parts would have been closer, there not then occurring three 
successive unaccented syllables between them together as 
now. 

From what was stated when first drawing the distinction 
between forward and backward rhythm, it is evident that the 
estimation of verses by the poetic run alone is not altogether 
fair to the class expressly designed for music, that of songs, 
&c. An important modification often thus comes about with 
regard to pace ; where, as here, for instance, musically ruled, 
an elegy no longer appears a gallop. 

Oh breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade, 
Where cold and unhonoured his relics are laid ; 
Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed, 
As the night dew that falls on the grass o'er his head. 



XVI. 

ON RHYME, HALF-RHYME, ALLITERATION, ETC. 

The practice of rhyme has been illustrated at some length ; 
we will now subject it to a little interior scrutiny, and see 
besides what modifications of it may be used as substitutes. 

It is an anomaly that rhyme, being of so great metrical 
avail, it has not been received into greater favour among us ; 
but except at the time of Pope, when sovereign fashion 
brought French modes into currency, our highest have almost 
invariably looked askance at rhyme, and scorned to be called 
rhymers. 

In opposition to those not of the craft, who are apt to 
think that the whole art of poetry consists in the truly 



.ON RHYME, HALF-RHYME, ALLITERATION, ETC. 113 

wonderful feat of finding one word that jingles with another, 
they have generally held rhyming as a sort of degradation 
which the supposed inferiority of their tongue to the so-called 
classical languages compelled them to undergo. They may 
have been in error, but such was their opinion. 

Shelley, in his first work, ' Queen Mab,' made an attempt 
to dispense with rhyme in the lyric. The success may not 
have been striking, but the intent is plain. Southey, again, 
Wordsworth, Milton, anti-rhymists : and who not, except 
Byron ? 

What Shakspeare thought of rhyme, if he at all expressed 
his own sentiments under the personality of Hotspur, may be 
judged from this : — 

I had rather be a kitten and cry mew, 

Than one of those same metre ballad mongers. 

For this general disesteem there must surely be some latent 
cause, notwithstanding that most of the carping to which 
rhyme has been subjected is solely owing to its being un- 
classic, and accordingly of disputed title to legitimacy-. 

It may be urged that, if any poets felt contempt for 
rhyming, they could and would have abstained from the 
practice. But from the scarcity of unrhymed forms, strict 
blank verse — in fact until a very recent date — and no other, 
choice may be said to have been debarred them. They 
might, indeed, have hit out for themselves new metres, as 
well at an early day as at a late ; but in this, from whatever 
cause, they have been most backward. How, indeed, should 
they not be backward ? Anything approaching innovation 
from an unknown writer would simply not be 6 heard of,' 
while those who had made their way by the beaten track 
could not be expected to be over-zealous in devising others. 

The connection between rhyme and melody is the next 
point to be discussed. First, what is melody itself? Over 
and above the mere amount of warbling incident to a large 
employment of vowels, it rests entirely on the lesser kind of 
rhyming which consists in ringing changes upon foregone 

i 



114 ENGLISH VERIFICATION. 

sounds — the same vowel with another consonant, or with its 
own diphthong, the same consonant with another vowel, and 
so on. Beyond this modulation and timing, melody of verse 
has no other elements. Music is as the vowel, rendered in- 
finitely impressionable by being entirely dissevered from the 
consonant, reduced from articulation to vibration only. 

If we examine a melodious Greek passage, such as the 
opening of the Odyssey, we shall perceive that the instances 
of half-rhyme, alliteration, and every variety of approach to 
repetition of foregone sounds, are absolutely too multitudi- 
nous to indicate ; the whole verse is alive with their playing 
and combining, like a sunset sky with irradiate tints. 

In English, of coarse, there cannot be melody to the same 
extent. Where, indeed, should we find in it such a word as 
rjsXioco (ee-elly-oi-oh), for instance? What is more, sylla- 
bles in Greek being shorter, repetitions to the same amount 
cannot have with us equivalent effect ; for evidently o and oo 
resemble each other much more than on does too or took; ay 
and aw much more than slack and gnawn ; and so on, the 
longer the syllables, and the more individual, the less telling 
under-rhyming modulants. 

Ehyme is too intense for melody ; it is the caricature of it, 
nothing more. Suppose it, say, the aggregation of melody 
into one spot — but is melody a thing that can be aggre- 
gated ? Melody is rather numerosity, a blending murmur, 
than one full concordance. Melody is as effectually silenced 
by rhyme as the tones of a flute under the beating of a 
drum. 

It is impossible to suppose that the Greeks should never 
have thought of rhyming, so simple an expedient as the 
clinking of two verses at their close must have come before 
every verse maker, whether or no. Its very absence in their 
verses is a proof that the jangle was noticed and avoided. 
The subtle play of inner melody must expire strangled, to 
allow the growth of this abnormal accretion. 

Ehyme, however, whatever may be its failings, is not to be 
charged with the actual subversion of melody in English, for 



.ON RHYME, HALF-RHYME, ALLITERATION, ETC. 115 

what with the small telling effect in our tongue of modulants 
in general as stated above, and the mute character of most 
unaccented vowels, there is really very little play of melody 
proper for it to overpower. 

Ehyme, then, though it really does stand with us moderns 
instead of melody, is not to be mistaken for it ; it is a coarse 
substitute, not the real article. 

The prime failing of rhyme is its assertive bounce, just the 
quality that makes it so prominent in all verses wherein it 
enters, gaining them the by-name of rhymes — in a word, its 
vulgarity. This being the case, even if rather felt by the 
poets than apprehended in so many words, is doubtless the 
underlying cause why so many have ranged themselves as its 
opponents, and sought to dispense with its use. 

It is the metrical function it performs, its utility apparent 
in so many metres, quite transforming them, and thereby 
more than doubling the poet's instruments, that constitutes 
the true defence of rhyming. And this should be borne in 
mind, — whatever its failings, its expediency far more than 
compensates. 

Where melody is not particularly required, rhyme forms a 
most excellent substitute to impart liveliness and vigour; 
when pointedness of expression is the aim, not Grecian 
numerosity so admirable ; but it tends to draggletail the Muse 
exalted. What is more, the full concordance which may be 
most agreeable in a lyric only palls when kept up through a 
length-long epic. 

In all poems it is usual to insist with great urgency that 
rhyme, when used, must be a full consonance, and nothing 
short of it. Now is this rational or irrational ? 

Those who seek perfect rhyme should, of course, accom- 
plish their endeavours, but their example should not be held 
binding over such as may desire to emancipate themselves a 
little from such fetters. The code of the rhymester is, how- 
ever, sought to be enforced dogmatically ; a perfect rhyme, 
or none at all. This we emphatically impugn, and deny 

12 



116 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

legislative competence on matters of personal taste, of which 
this is one. 

That something of these opinions has been held before 
to-day, take the following letter from Monk Lewis to Sir 
Walter Scott :— 

London, January 24, 1799. 

I must not omit telling you, for your own comfort, and that 
of all such persons as are wicked enough to use bad rhymes, 
that Mr. Smythe, a very clever man at Cambridge, took great 
pains the other day to convince me not merely that a bad 
rhyme might pass, but that occasionally a bad rhyme was 
better than a good one ! ! ! I need not tell you that he left 
me as great an infidel on this subject as he found me. — 
Ever yours, M. Gr. Lewis. 

But for this Monk Lewis and the critics, Walter Scott, as 
is well known, did not object to an imperfect rhyme himself. 
Yet are there critics to this hour who form their opinion of 
a poet mainly on the smoothness of his rhymes, and venture 
to point out a so-called careless rhyme as a blemish, even to 
a long poem ! As if a writer might not decide for himself 
the degree of clink he chose, and sick of trite jingles, attempt 
a slight variation. It is, perhaps, owing to the public 
opinion created by small pedants of this kind that no modifi- 
cations of rhyme have ever been in received use among us ; 
deviations not cried down would have become precedents, but 
rule was set above reason. 

Ehyme consisting in the concurrence of sounds final, where 
the words end on a vowel — as die, defy — nothing is needed but 
the agreement of those vowels ; where it ends on a consonant 
these also must rhyme — in this case twice the amount of 
rhymed material is required to produce the same effect. The 
vowel ending being comparatively rare, unison of vowel and 
consonant both generally go to make up an ordinary rhymed 
ending. What is called a bad or imperfect rhyme is a failure 
in either one of these particulars. 

Ehyme of the vowel only, or, as it is also called, assonance, 



ON RHYME, HALF- RHYME, ALLITERATION, ETC. 117 

though quite neglected in English, is in Spanish not only com- 
mon, but national and universal : for rhyme of the consonant 
only we must go to the Norse or Welsh. We have seen it 
gravely stated that the ears of people of this country are not 
sufficiently refined to appreciate the subtleties of either 
style ; they must have rhyme full and vulgar, to suit their 
coarse apprehensions. But a far more elaborate trial than 
has ever been accorded could alone warrant such a sweeping 
statement. Take the following attempt, where the agree- 
ment is of a slenderer kind again, amounting occasionally 
to mere echo : — 

Once upon the shore of Friesland, in the time of olden gone, 
Lived a gentle-hearted maiden, more than lovely, named Gudrune. 
Ah, so fair of form surpassing, winsome so in all her ways ; 
Sunshine seemed to be about her, joy to follow in her path : 
Magically in her presence tied the sorrows of the sad ; 
No less wondrously enchanted, tamed was roughness of the rude. 
Early by her fame attracted, noble suitors round her came, 
But the king, her father, Hetel, ruler of the Hegelings, 
And the queen, her mother, Hilda, overweening in their pride, 
Scornfully sent from the castle all who sought the maid to wife. 
Little did foresee King Hetel, when he them so proudly used, 
All the bloody ruth he earned him, all the lengthening train of woes. 
Troth he deemed might he be haughty, ruling over eighty towns, 
With his strong embattled castles, with his fair and fruitful lands. 
Well aware in them moreover, those were ready at his call, 
W r ho his foemen rage their utmost, right were able to repel. 
Rulers of his land beneath him, were not five — those barons great, 
Horand, Irolt, Frut, and Morung, and the Earl of Sturmland Wat, 
Each of them a warrior chosen, each of them a kinsman true, 
Faithful to him, firm friends bound en, tried and found in danger so. 

The advantage of this style is that the degree of rhyme is 
perfectly under control at the writer's election, at times ap- 
proaching full rhyme, at others amounting to nothing more 
than an avoidance of dissonance. 

When the vowel is long, assonance seems sufficient, how- 
ever different the consonant ; but where it is short, some 
slight affinity of consonants is better, as p, b, f, v — d, t, th — 
k, j, g — 1, r, w — z, s, th — m, n, ng, nd — &c. When the 
ending is on a vowel, which is then of course long, any 



118 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

diphthong of that vowel is near enough approach, or even as 
' so ' and ' true ' above. 

The thing to be observed is, that the lines of a couplet have 
a greater affinity with one another than with following or 
preceding lines ; and the thing to be avoided is, that line 
after line any affinity whatever should appear the effect of 
design. 

Interior rhyming, full or partial, and a certain degree of 
alliteration, may be carried on in conjunction with this echo- 
ing, more advantageously perhaps than in any other style ; 
indeed, as close an approach to numerosity may be as effec- 
tually made here as the language admits, not that the above 
is a pattern in this respect- 
It is the peculiarity of all species of under-rhyme that they 
may exist unseen — unseen, but far from unfelt — merged into 
the general melody. 

And hamlets brown, and dim discovered spires, 
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er All 
The dewy fingers dvAw, 
The gradual dusky ve^7. 

Of assonance in unison with rhyme, take the following ex- 
ample from Marsh's ; Manual of the English Language ' : — 

Then out sprang the warrior's blade, 

And gaily he waved 
The flashing swoed. 
Let us meet the foeman, he cried, 

Let us rode and decide 

The awARD. 

In the same work we meet with the following, where, be- 
sides alliteration after the Anglo-Saxon pattern, there is in 
the first member between its two extremes a consonant 
rhyme, in the second member a full rhyme, the whole an 
imitation of Icelandic heroic verse after the most approved 
pattern : — 

SoFify now are siting snows on landscape frozen, 
Thickly fall the FLakelets Feathery light together, 
Snoiver of silver pouring soundless all around us, 
Fie/o* and river Folding FAir in mantle rarest. 



• ON RHYME, HALF-RHYME, ALLITERATION, ETC. 119 

Clad in garments cloud- wrought covered light above her, 
Calm in cooling slumbers cradled, Earth hath laid her \ 
So to rest in silence, safe from heats that chafe her, 
Till her troubled pulses truer beat and fewer. 

Every throb is over, all to stillness fallen ! 
Flowers upon her forehead fling not yet, oh springtime ! 
Still yet stay awhile too, summertime, thy coming ! 
Linger yet still longer, lest we break her resting. 

The Welsh are the ones for metres of this description, 
which they carry out much more comprehensively, sometimes 
every consonant in a verse being, without exception, responded 
to in the next ; but it is a question whether the necessary 
formality of all melody by rule is not too prominent a feature 
to be altogether agreeable. 

In Lord Lytton's ' Harold ' we have a modern imitation of 
an old alliterative Saxon lay, entitled 'The Phoenix.' Its 
author presents it in the short form, divided where the mid- 
capitals indicate — oddly occasionally : — 

Shineth far hence, so Sing the wise elders, 

Far to the fire-cast The fairest of lands. 
Daintily dight is that Dearest of joy-fields ; 

Breezes all balm y-filled Glide through its groves. 

There to the blest, ope The high doors of heaven, 
Sweetly sweep earthward Their wavelets of song ; 

Frost robes the sward not, Hushes no hailsteel ; 
Wind-cloud ne'er wanders, Ne'er falleth the rain. 

Here it may be observed that the c odd syllable over,' met 
with if the verse be read in the forward run, need by no 
means be of the slight unsubstantial nature spoken as proper 
to it in blank verse, and elsewhere. 

In modern English verse alliteration only plays the subor- 
dinate part of a modulant, not to be unduly decried where 
not overdone. 

I might have said, 
My mountain maid, 
Come live with me, your own true lover : 
I know a spot, 
A silent cot, 
Your friends will ne'er discover, 



120 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Where gently flows the waveless tide 

By one small garden only, 
Where the heron waves his wing so wide, 

And the linnet sings so lonely. — Gille Maceee. 

As used by Gray in his ode of < The Bard,' quoted else- 
where, it strikingly imparts vigour and melody. 

Jtuin seize thee, ruthless king — 

IMm nor hauberk's twisted mail — 

From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears — 

To Aighborn HbeYs ^arp or soft Llewellyn's Zay. 

In the following, although perhaps not ill-applied, we view 
it coldly. The explanation, if we are not mistaken, is that 
blank verse has not sufficient swing and emphasis about it to 
give the alliteration due effect, making it seem to fall flat 
accordingly: — 

Then a piteous cry, 
And from the purple baldachin down sprang 
The princess gleaming like a #host, and slid 
Among the swords, and standing in the midst 
Swept a wild arm of prohibition forth. 
And in the hush her voice Aeavy with scorn : 
Or shall I call you men or beasts ? who seem 
JVo nobler than the bloodhound and the wolf, 
Which scorn to prey upon their proper kind ! 
Christians I will not call you who defraud 
That much-misappreAended Aoly name, 
Of reverence due by such a deed as done, 
W^ill clash against the charities of Christ 
And make a marred thing and a mockery 
Of the /air /ace of mercy. 

It is the custom, now-a-days, to sneer at every form of al- 
literation, and yet accept rhyme ; but obviously this is absurd, 
for if alliteration differs in anything from the other constitu- 
ents of melody, it is in being too decided, forcing itself upon 
the notice, and so becoming vulgar, which as said is in fully 
as great degree the fault of its rival. 



JUNCTIONS. 121 

XVII. 

JUNCTIONS. 

It has been remarked that many verses may be written in 
half or whole lengths at pleasure. When, however, either 
member has adopted the latitude allowable at the beginning 
and end of verses in ordinary, it is obvious the two members 
in junction will wear a very different metrical aspect, either 
to the single portions or to the line conjoined without varia- 
tions. 

In the following tripping metre, the first member lacking 
a syllable, the measure is broken, and two accents come to- 
gether : — 

Broad the forests stood, I read, on the hills of Linteged. 

And three hundred years had stood mute adown each hoary wood, 

Like a full heart having prayed. 
And the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, 
And but little thought was theirs of the silent antique years, 

In the building of their nest. 
Down the sun dropt large and red on the towers of Linteged — 
Lance and spear upon the height, bristling strange in fiery light, 

While the castle stood in shade. — Mes. Bkowning. 

So, again, with the exception of the first line : — 

Hollow is the oak beside the sunny waters drooping ; 
Thither came, when I was young, happy children trooping; ' 
Dream I now, or hear I now — far, their mellow whooping ? 
Gay below the cowslip bank, see the billow dances ; 
There I lay beguiling time, when I lived romances, 
Dropping pebbles in the wave, fancies into fancies. 

BlJLWEE LXTTON. 

Curtness of the first member, indeed, necessitates irregular 
junction, for if the loss be attempted to be made up after- 
wards — that is, the second member begin with an unaccented 
syllable — instead of the tripping measure being kept up un- 
broken, it simply lapses into the forward run. Of this the 
first line above is an example. 



122 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

In the irregular junction of verse in the forward run, in- 
stead of a syllable omitted the question is of one added. 

He is gone on the mountain, he is lost to the forest, 
Like a summer- dried fountain, when our need was the sorest ; 
The fount reappearing from the raindrops shall borrow, 
But to us comes no cheering, to Duncan no morrow. — Scott. 

And the ships that came from England, when the winter months were 

gone, 
Brought no tidings of this vessel, nor of Master Lamberton ; 
This put the people to praying that the Lord would let them hear, 
What in his greater wisdom he had done with friends so dear, 
And at last their prayers were answered — it was in the month of June, 
An hour before the sunset of a windy afternoon. — Longfellow. 

It is seen the verse thus arranged takes a sort of leap at 
the cesural position, unlike anything we have observed 
before. 

In the next, which is somewhat peculiar, every line is divided 
by a central cesura of free junction : — 

Rests my cheek upon my hand, rests my elbow on the table, 
Like a man who would in earnest compel himself to muse ; 
But my thoughts are in revolt from a will become unable 
To consolidate in order the freedom they abuse. 

Still I seek, I yearn, I pray, to fasten firm decision, 

To the choice that must determine the lot of waning life ; 

"What is best for me seems clear through all shadow to my vision, 

The Sabbath day of quiet, after working days of strife. 

Ah ! to watch on lawns remote, in the deep of Sabine valleys, 
How the sunset gilds the cypress growing high beside my home, 
While the ringdove's latest coo lulls the fading forest alleys, 
Were sweeter for life's evening than the roar and smoke of Rome. 

Btjlwer Lytton. 

Here, immediately preceding the cesura, are in every case 
two march feet, the former of the two frequently a hover. 
Preceding this again a quantum of either two or three syl- 
lables, generally the latter, which follow the attraction of the 
other feet in inclining to the forward run. Some lines wear 
the aspect of trip throughout ; but as they can incline the 
other way, they do. 



JUNCTIONS. 123 

Simple change from march into trip is feasible enough, 
though quite ignored in modern poetry. 

The king was in his counting-house Counting out his money, 
The queen was in the parlour Eating bread and honey, 
The maid was in the garden Hanging out the clothes, 
Along came a blackbird and Snapped off her nose. 

Sweet came the hallow chiming Of the Sabbath bell, 
Borne on the morning breezes Down the woody dell. 
On a bed of pain and anguish Lay dear Annie Lisle ; 
Changed were the lovely features, Gone the happy smile. 

Writing the two lines in one after this fashion, it would be 
positively open to consider the last member forward or back- 
ward, the determination resting on the degree of force given 
to the cesura. 

Though not junctions of the cesural kind, it maybe as 
well to include in this section all changes from one run to 
the other. The following begin in tripping measure, and 
then change to march, so that there are two unaccented syl- 
lables between accents at a certain point, imparting a lively 
effect. The arrangement is, indeed, no other than that cha- 
racterised as the strong beginning carried more into the body 
of the verse : — 

To and fro on the waters swaying 

Over the pitiless ocean grave, 
Just as lissomly lightly playing 

With the still as the stormy wave. 

Serious worth in its airy gladness, 

Sports the Buoy to its anchor true : 
Faithless heart, wilt thou sink in sadness ? 

Eise to tell of an anchor too. — Bttlwer Lytton. 

you chorus of indolent reviewers, 

Irresponsible, indolent reviewers, 

Look, I come to the touch a tiny poem, 

All composed in a metre of Catullus ; 

All in quantity careful of my motion, 

Like a skater on ice that hardly bears him, 

Lest I fall unawares before the people, 

Waking laughter in indolent reviewers : 

Should I flounder awhile without a tumble, 

Thro' this metrification of Catullus, 

They should speak to me not without a welcome. — Tennyson. 



124 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

In expression this last does not dis-resemble the sonnet ; 
it is, therefore, recommended to sonneteers in general as a 
variation. 

Another variety : — 

Loud-voiced night, with the wild winds blowing 

Many a tune ; 
Stormy night, with white rainclouds going 

Over the moon ; 
Mystic night, that each minute changes — 
Now as blue as the mountain ranges 

Far, far away ; 
Now, as black as a heart where strange is 

Joy, night or day. — Bulweb, Lytton. 

Again, with the arrangement only partial : — 

Sweet in the greenwood a birdie sings, 
Golden-yellow its two bright wings, 
Bed its heartikin, blue its crest : 
Oh but it sings with the sweetest breast. 

Early, early at lighted dawn, 

On the edge of my ingle-stone, 

As I prayed my morning prayer — 

i Tell me thy errand, birdie fair.' — Tom Taylor. 

Rich and rare were the gems she wore, 

And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore ; 

But oh ! her beauty was far beyond 

Her sparkling gems and snow-white wand. 

Lady, dost thou not fear to stray, 

So lone and lovely through this bleak way ? 

Are Erin's sons so good or so cold 

As not to be tempted by woman or gold ?— Moore. 

Pain and sorrow shall vanish before us, 

Youth may wither, but feeling will last : 
All the shadow that ever fell o'er us, 

Love's light summercloud sweetly shall cast. 
Oh ! if to love thee more 
Each hour I numbered o'er : 
If this a passion be 
Worthy of thee, 



TONE-YERSE. 125 

Then, be happy, for thus I adore thee ; 

Charms may wither, but feeling will last : 
All the shadow that e'er shall fall o'er thee 

Love's light summercloud sweetly shall cast. — Moore. 

Contrary change out of the forward metre into the trip- 
ping is impracticable without intervention of the fixed 
cesura. 



xviir. 

TOXE-YERSE. 

Akin to the last subject may be cited another kind of 
irregularity. We have seen that it is allowable to quicken 
the movement of verse by the insertion of additional syllables, 
even to racing speed. Let only the contrary course be at- 
tempted, on however small a scale, the verse is contemp- 
tuously styled halting ; this harsh judgment should at least be 
reconsidered. Is there any will say the close of this old ditty 
would be better corrected, 

Even so a man, whose thread is spun, 
Drawn out and set, and so is done. 
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth, 
The flower fades, the morning hasteth ; 
The sun sets, the shadow flies, 
The gourd consumes, and man he dies. 

The correction is indeed simple enough : write he or it in 
front of the word ' sets,' as it is done before 'dies ' in the fol- 
lowing line. But where is the gain ? Certainly not in the 
expression, only in conforming to rule for rule's sake. 

Let us take another instance : — 

Old Holly, well we know thy kind face of old ; 
Thy glossy leaves, thy ruddy berries and prickles bold. 
Of winters braved thy look speaks, sturdy and true, " 
And of the heart behind it stout that bore thee through. 
Thy hand, old friend, ah well I know how strong thy grasp, 
But not I wot & friend's hand gives half a clasp. 
Thy hand then, Holly, but thy prickles — oh ! 
Here's to thee, Holly, and fair Mistletoe. 



126 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

'Twas in the time of olden, time agone long syne, 

That thou, old sturdy Holly, madest Mistletoe thine. 

Still ever against that tide thou deckest thee in thy brightest, 

Likewise thy ladie fair she decks her in her whitest. 

This lets us into the metrical mystery, for it is at once ap- 
parent that something more than ordinary is required before 
a syllable can be dropped. This js excessive weight in the 
component words, monosyllables, which form a sort of spon- 
daic foot between them across the gap. In the second stave 
there is once a concurrence of three such syllables, and then 
no further employment of the figure, such of course not 
being compulsory ; nor, happening at the end of the line, is 
there any metric break in this last instance. 

The verse, 'How should we sing the Lord's song in a 
strange land,' might be quoted as a notable instance, having 
this dwell repeated twice in a very brief space. 

Holding that there is no further observance called for in 
verse than that of pleasing proportion, it cannot be ad- 
mitted that these or similar forms are unlawfully constituted, 
unless disagreeable. 

Take the following sequent to a piece instanced before, 
under false metre : — 

Do you question the young children in the sorrow, 

Why their tears are falling so ? 
The old man may weep for his to-morrow, 

Which is lost in long Ago. 
The old tree is leafless in the forest. 

The old year is ending in the frost, 
The old wound if stricken is the sorest, 

The old hope is hardest to he lost : 
But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

Do you ask them why they stand 
Weeping sore before the bosom of their mothers, 

In our happy Fatherland ? — Mks. Browning. 

Lines of this description are not unfreqnently met with : — 

There came a voice when all forsaken 

This heart long had sleeping lain, 
Nor thought its cold pulse would ever waken 

To such benign, blessed sounds again. 



TONE-VERSE. 127 

Sweet voice of comfort 'twas like the stealing 

Of summer wind through some wreathed shell. 
Each secret winding, each inmost feeling 

Of all my soul echoed to its spell. 
'Twas whispered balm, 'twas sunshine spoken, 

I'd live years of grief and pain 
To have my long sleep of sorrow broken 

By such benign, blessed sounds again. — Moore. 

The admired cadence of ' Love's Young Dream ' owes its 
character to this sort of spondaic resting on long syllables, as 
also does 'Auld Lang Syne. 5 With these, however, the 
number of syllables is three, and there is no metric break. 
But then the end of the line is the place of the dwell, and 
that accounts for the rest. The close requires the third long 
syllable, and that brings matters metrically straight : — 

Oh ! the days are gone when Beauty bright 

My heart's chain ivove, 
When my dream of life from morn till night 

Was love, still love. 

New hope may bloom, 

New days may come 
Of milder, calmer beam, 
But there's nothing half so sweet in life 

As love's young dream : 
No, there's nothing half so sweet in life 

As loves young dream. — Moore. 

A question may arise as to whether decided pauses ought 
not to reckon for something in verse, as well as rests in music. 
No observance of the kind is requisite, but the cesural posi- 
tion has been occasionally made use of to dock the verse a 
syllable, after the manner of the first example cited: — 
Orphan hours, the year is dead, 

Come and sigh, come and weep ! 
Merry hours, smile instead, 

For the year is but asleep : 
See it smiles as it is sleeping, 
Mocking your untimely weeping. — Shelley. 

Instances of the contrary might just as easily be adduced 
where the cesura has been taken advantage of to increase 
syllables indefinitely. 



128 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Hyperion to a satyr : so loving to my mother. 
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid. 

Set against these 

A brother's murder — Pray can I not. 

Conformity in these is less sought, but is really hardly 
more taxed than in this of strained regularity from Dekker, 
where a long string of articles, more numerous than the feet, 
is crammed into one verse : — 

Six gifts I spend upon mortality, 

Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches ; 

Out of my bounty one of these is thine. 

No metre but blank verse could submit to this treatment 
without breaking down utterly. 

A treatise on versification can hardly be considered com- 
plete that leaves out of notice altogether about suiting the 
sound to the sense ; but really it is a point on which rules 
are useless. If the writer's own perception of appropriate- 
ness cannot guide him, nothing else can. All know the 
passage : — 

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, 

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows ; 

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 

The hoarse, rough yerse should like the torrent roar : 

"When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 

The line too labours, and the verse moves slow : 

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, 

Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main. 

Of course, in the very nature of things, there is nothing 
here that can compare with the variable numbers of 6 Alex- 
ander's Feast,' or Pope's own ' Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.' Vari- 
able movement of that kind there is none. The point of 
import is that in the first couplet the sound of the words 
employed is notably soft and smooth — few rough r's ; in the 
second couplet, the direct contrary, many rough r's ; in a 
word, a deft use of alliteration. 

The last two couplets are noticeable on somewhat different 
ground : the first by the weight attempted to be thrown into 



CESURAL VERSE* 129 

the words ; the second, by the lightness. Any difference be- 
tween the acts of Ajax and Camilla rests on the use of 
weightier words in general for the former, but of such in the 
unaccented places, that is, on the words Q vast,' ' too,' ' moves ;' 
while the protraction of the last line of the piece, under op- 
posite conditions, expresses ease like undrooping flight. 

It may, however, be observed of the line that supposably 
' labours,' that the quasi-hover that the word ' and ' in accen- 
tual position allows imparts a metrical tendency quite 
opposite to tardy, unless overborne in utterance by a reflected 
weight from the known sense. 



XIX. 

CESURAL VERSE. 



It was observed that every single metrical element was at 
times dropped, at others brought into prominent notice. We 
have had verses without cesura ; we shall now have them of 
cesura only, dropping out of sight the foot altogether for a 
time, or making it quite secondary. 

The cadence accompanying fixed cesura has already been 
commented on ; we shall now see that this has the power of 
constituting verses to itself alone, with a certain kind of 
parallel bearing. 

The peculiar style in which Macpherson edited his ' Poems 
of Ossian' is well known to every one, short disjointed sen- 
tences, varying between three and four feet about, but of no 
certain measure. Macpherson, with great propriety, scorned 
to reduce his poems to the crabbed forms of ordinary verse, 
and appears to have hesitated whether his work was not a 
kind of verse already. What, it may safely be asserted, he 
did not perceive was, how near an approximation to verse he 

K 



130 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 



4-T« 



actually had attained, though yet beyond the barrier. Little 
more was needed than that two of his short sentences should 
have been written in one, and verse would have been consti- 
tuted forthwith. The present writer is preparing an edition 
of Ossian thus ordered, of course with extensive modifications 
in general. 

But why art thou sad, son of Fingal, why grows the cloud of thy soul ? 
The chiefs of other days have departed, they have gone without their 

fame. 
The sons of future years shall pass away ; another race shall arise* 
The people are like the waves of ocean, like the leaves of woody 

Morven ; 
They pass away in the rustling blast, and other leaves lift their green 

heads on high. 
Did thy "beauty last, O Ryno ; stood the strength of carborne Oscar ? 
Fingal himself departed, the halls of his fathers forgot his steps. 
Shalt thou then remain, thou aged bard, when the mighty hav& failed ? 
No, but my fame shall remain, and grow as the oak of Morven, 
Which lifts its broad head to the storm, and rejoices in. the course of the 

wind. 

The approach to feet is seen to be very close here,, but so it 
is in the famous ' Poems ' throughout ; indeed, almost any 
English sentence of this length, of not too hard words, will 
naturally divide up in this way into feet approximate. 

Even in so irregular a measure as this it is as well to keep 
tolerably close to one length of line ; in the verse before us, 
not having fewer syllables than enough to, make three feet 
in each member, not more on the average than to make four, 
or at most five. The second member will always bear pro- 
traction better than the first* 

The darkness whistles there; the distant mariner sees the waving 

trees — 
Her soul trembles at the blast, she turns her ear towards the tread of 

her feet. 

A triplet arrangement, or at least a sufficient displacement 
of the central cesura to wear that appearance, may perhaps 



CESURAL TERSE. 131 

not be wholly inadmissible, but still should be very seldom 
allowed. 

He took the bow ; the tears flow down from both his sparkling eyes. 

Too equal and decided a division into three is objection- 
able : — 

Silent he stands, for who had not heard of the battles of Gaul. 

The same constitution can be applied to verses of much 
greater length, in which case the approach to foot-ordering is 
much less perceptible. 

THE FLOWER GIRL OF SICYOIS. 

fair, very fair and glorious is the broad world ; and all full of sunlight 

is the blinding and infinite blue. 
Earth and heaven are beautiful in their perfect peace ; but my soul 

within me is all a turbulent sea of love. 
O my love ! 1 behold you everywhere by night and by day ; 
In my dreams you are with me through the darkness, and when I awake 

you abide still in my heart. 
Never a thing I do but I do it for you who cannot see me, never a word 

I speak but I do it for you who hear me not. 
me ! love is very sweet and sorrowful, but the pulses of the great 

earth beat continually to the music of love I 
Is there anything stronger and mightier than love, that overcometh 

alike gods and men ! 
Answer me, ye beautiful flowers of the forest, ye amorous trees that 

overhead tenderly embrace one another ! 
Alas, I behold you happy in perfect possession ; but my soul, my soul, is 

all a turbulent sea of love. — Macmillan's Magazine (xv.). 

The line here beginning * my love ' is seen to stand 
apart, without a parallel. Shall it be regarded as forming a 
triplet with the next pair, or independent ? Best the latter, 
perhaps, considering its length and self-completeness. 

If there may be both single line and triplet, and yet the 
strong cesura that constitutes the parallel couplet the only 
atom of rule about the matter, it may well be inquired, is 
it worth while to chart such floating islands ? But it is seen 
the exceptions are but like spondaic endings in the hexameter, 

K2 



132 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

like an occasional quick-foot in blank verse, or any other 
small anomaly most metres present, and that the islands are 
really anchored after all. 

The name proposed for verse of this cesural construction is 
the midabout, as the most descriptive of its character. 

In arranging measures of this kind, when too long to get 
into one line, it seems advisable not to divide therja in writ- 
ing just at the cesura, such a practice tending to disintegrate 
the structure, and destroy the parallelism. 



XX. 

FREE VERSE. 



That will be called free verse which is freed from control 
in the length of its lines, for division into lines appears to be 
the prime principle of metre. First, with feet and rhyme 
still preserved : — 

For all the many years 

I might have seen peace upon Israel 

Beside my father, in the citadel 

Of Gilead, where in loneliness, 

With neither son nor daughter, comfortless, 

When I am gone he will be j udging still. 

One little week of tears, 

And we have wept our fill. 

Yes, I shall go away and have not seen 

My children, or that child who might have been. 

And yet I cannot weep — 

Cannot weep any more. I only wish to sleep 

Here, in this flowery dell, 

w here the soft waters well 

To soothe me with a murmur low and sweet. — G. Simcox. 

Or the same in quick metre : — 

Now shall we say 
Our Italy lives indeed ! 



FREE TERSE. 133 

And if it were not for the beat and bray 

Of drum and trump of martial men, 

Should we feel the underground heave and strain, 

Where heroes left their dust as a seed 

Sure to emerge one day ? 

And if it were not for the rhythmic march 

Of France and Piedmont's double hosts, 

Should we hear the ghosts 

Shrill through ruined aisle and arch, 

Throb along the frescoed wall, 

Whisper an oath by that divine, 

They left in picture and stone, 

That Italy is not dead at all ? 

And if it were not for the tears in our eyes, 

These tears of a sudden and passionate joy, 

Should we see her arise ? — Mrs. Browning. 

Short staves of settled form in their recurrence, but as irre- 
gular as pieces of this free verse, are in occasional use, as this 
of the end of the sixteenth century : — 

Send home my long strayed eyes to me, 

Which oh ! too long have dwelt on thee ) 

But if they there have learned such ill, 

Such forced fashions 

And false passions, 

That they be 

Made by thee 

Fit for no good sight, keep them still. — J. Donne. 

Or again, in our own day : — 

Into the Silent Land, 

Ah, who shall lead us thither ? 

Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, 

And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand. 

Who leads us with a gentle hand 

Thither, thither, 

Into the Silent Land ? — Longeellow. 

The following, from Walter Scott's ' Betrothed,' but for lack 
of foot formation, is a longer form of that class of recurrent 
Htave instanced at the end of the section on Unrhymed 
Stanza : — 



134 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

I asked of my harp, 'Who hath injured thy chords ? ' 
And she replied, i The crooked finger, which I mocked in my time.' 
A blade of silver may be bended, a blade of steel abideth. 
Kindness fadeth away, but vengeance endureth. 

The sweet taste of mead passeth from the lips, 

But they are long corroded by the juice of the wormwood ; 

The lamb is brought to the shambles, but the wolf rangeth 

mountain ; 
Kindness fadeth away, but vengeance endureth. 

I asked the red-hot iron when it glimmered on the anvil, 

< Wherefore glowest thou longer than the firebrand ? ' 

i I was born in the dark mine, and the brand in the pleasant greenwood/ 

Kindness fadeth away, but vengeance endureth. 

If free verse imply the poetical note struck without any 
formal regulation whatever, then have we got it in the follow- 
ing, Scott's c Song of the Tempest,' in the ' Pirate ; ' but some 
restraint, much or little, appears necessary for metre, and 
that not to be verse without any. It may be a question 
whether the climaxing form of invocation in the piece count 
for anything : — 

I. 

Stern eagle of the far north-west, 

Thou that bearest in thy glance the thunderbolt, 

Thou whose rushing pinions stir ocean to madness, 

Thou the destroyer of herds, thou the scatterer of navies, 

Amidst the scream of thy rage, 

Amidst the rushing of thy onward wings, 

Though thy scream be loud as the cry of a perishing nation, 

Though the rushing of thy wings be like the roar of a thousand waves, 

Yet hear, in thine ire and thy haste, 

Hear thou the voice of the Eeimkennar. 

II. 

Thou hast met the pine trees of Drontheim, 

Their dark-green heads lie prostrate beside their uprooted stems ; 

Thou hast met the rider of the ocean, 

The tall, the strong bark of the fearless rover, 

And she has struck to thee the topsail 

That she had not veiled to a royal armada, 

Thou hast met the tower that bears its crest among the clouds, 

The battled massive tower of the Jarl of former days, 



HOVER. — FEET VERSUS MAIN. 135 

And the copestone of the turret 

Is lying upon its hospitable hearth - 9 

But thou too shalt stoop, proud compeller of clouds, 

When thou hearest the voice of the Eeimkennar. 



XXL 

HOVER, FEET VERSUS MAIN. 



The nature of the hover has been already explained as af- 
fecting blank verse, in which its influence hardly ever ceases, 
while in quick metre every foot, unless exceptionally having 
a corresponding accent, no distinctive notice of it was called 
for. Here, however, is an example : — 

Farewell, farewell, I'll dream no more, 

'Tis misery to be dreaming ; 
Farewell, farewell, and I will be 

At least like thee in seeming. 

This is but by the way, our real concern being more with 
forms into which the hover enters systematically. 

In the following, part of a piece given in the last section, 
it is merely the natural result of triple rhyme : — 

One more unfortunate 

Weary of breath, 
Kashly importunate, 

Gone to her death i 

Take her up tenderly 

Lift her with care ; 
Fashioned so slenderly, 

Young, and so fair. — T. Hood. 

In the following its application is rather peculiar, and we 
begin to touch the true ground : — 

When woman's eye grows dim, 

And her cheek paleth ; 
When fades the beautiful, 

Then man's love faileth. 



136 ENGLISH VERIFICATION. 

He sits not beside her chair, 

Clasps not her fingers, 
Entwines not the damp hair 

That o'er her brow lingers. 

He comes but a moment in, 

Though her eye brightens. 
Though the hectic flush 

Feverishly heightens, 
He stays but a moment near, 

While that flush fadeth j 
Though disappointment's tear 

Her dim eye shadeth. 

This is a piece about which, simple as it looks, there would 
be likely to be great disagreement as to the manner of scan- 
ning. The apparent construction, and doubtless the real one, 
is three feet of tolerably free choice in the longer line, and 
two in the shorter. There is, however, a disorganising metric 
power within. The middle foot of the three in the longer 
line being frequently quick, and the third foot, which is 
also the closing one, slow, there is a tendency to increase the 
force of the middle accent at the expense of the last, as in 
the analogous case of ' revert,' with which, indeed, it is in 
close connection — only a matter of the strong beginning dif- 
ferent. The line 

Though disappointment's tear 

is of that description exactly. 

When the middle foot is not quick, compensation is as if 
made by a real hover, as in the line — 

When fades the beautiful. 

The first line of the poem, be it understood, is an exception 
here as in many other metres, the verse not assuming a dis- 
tinct character till fairly under weigh. 

The sum of the matter is this, that when recited in ordi- 
nary no verse, short or long, but this one, receives more than 
two main accents. We are drawing nigh to other principles 
of proportioning in which feet get unsettled. 



HOVER. — FEET VERSUS MAIN. 137 

In the next the hover is confined to the last foot but one, 
regularly every alternate line : — 

Thou wilt come no more, gentle Annie, 
Like a flower thy spirit did depart : 

Thou art gone, alas ! like the many 
That have bloomed in the summer of my heart. 

Shall we never more behold thee, 
Never hear thy winning voice again, 

When the spring time comes, gentle Annie, 
When the wild-flowers are scattered o'er the plain ? 

Here the prior alternate line is of three feet, a short foot 
between two long ones. The other is of four feet, beginning, 
in like manner with the first, quick, the second slow or quick 
at choice, and the two final slow. Thus roughly the second 
line bears to the first the appearance of having the final quick 
foot lengthened out into four syllables. 

The consequence of this is that, read in a natural way, the 
example of the prior line, together with the similar opening 
of the other as if the same measure was about to be repeated, 
tends to the production of the hover on the third foot of the 
longer line, whether the syllable in place be accentually 
capable or not. Thus either line receives three main accents, 
save only the short line beginning with ' shall,' which receives 
but two. 

A measure previously given in the section styled Junctions, 
beginning ' Eests my cheek, 5 and there remarked on as pecu- 
liar, is also noticeable in this way. In this case, however, the 
main beats are four : — 

All the prizes that allured me in the eager days of passion 
Seem to reason (when it pauses not to scorn them, but survey), 
As baubles which for childhood kindly sages stoop to fashion : 
If sages make the plaything, 'tis to smile upon the play. 

Or take another instance, the feet random arranged : — 

When the sheep are in the fold, and the kye at hame, 
And a' the world to rest are gane, 
The waes o' my heart fa in showers frae my ee' ; 
While my gudeman lies sound by me. 



138 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride ; ' 

But saving a crown he had nae thing else beside ; 

To make the crown a pund, young Jamie ga'ed to sea ; 

And the crown and the pund were baith for me. 

He hadna' been awa' a week but only twa, 

When my father brak his arm, and the cow was stoun awa' ; 

Ma mother she fell sick, and my Jamie at the sea — 

And auld Robin Gray came a-courtin' me. 

It is seen how unequal are the lines in the number of their 
feet, varying from four to six, with quick occasional ; but, 
strange to tell, the main accents in every line will be found 
the same number, namely, four. 

Also another old verse unexpectedly manifests the same 
substructure : — 

An old song made by an aged old pate 

Of an old worshipful gentleman who had a great estate, 

That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate, 

And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate ; 

Like an old courtier of the queen's, and the queen's old courtier. 

In this case the movement by feet alone is not sufficient to 
explain all phenomena. 

A peculiarity above others is the vastly different length of 
line that can be assimilated under four main ordering, and 
the extraordinary aptitude that the most varied verses show- 
in adapting themselves to its regimen. 

The secret of the matter is, that when measurement by 
feet is the least undecided by the action of the hover, another 
force comes into play, which is no other than timing, propor- 
tionate timing. All these examples, however, except per- 
haps the last, are on debatable ground, rather showing how 
verse into which the hover enters may be ruled, than that 
such is their arrangement incontestible. 



MAIN. 139 

XXII. 

MAIN. 

We now come to the most novel section of the subject, that 
where feet are superseded entirely, their place supplied by 
the accents bounding a rhapsodic dance along at uneven dis- 
tances, guided only by the expression. 

It was before observed that the principle of feet in general, 
as first supplanting the old alliterative system, is rather to 
be explained as a device to reduce the powers of the accent 
to a minimum for the attainment of smoothness than aught 
else ; as the nearer and more regular accents fall, the less their 
proportionate force. 

This system of comparatively weak accentual power it is 
proposed to supplement by another, where accent in all its 
strength as a torrent is master of the occasion. The number 
of main beats being four in each line, the consequent descrip- 
tive term is four-main. 

Sing unto Jehovah, for he hath triumphed gloriously, 

The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea ; 

He hath proved himself my strength and my salvation hath my God, 

The God of my fathers, exalt ye high his name. 

Jehovah, Jehovah, is a mighty man of war : 

Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea, 

Egypt and her king the waters he hath poured over them ; 

Overhead of them the waters, as a stone they sank. 

Thy right hand, Jehovah, hath shown glorious in power, 
Thy right hand, Jehovah, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. 
Wondrously hast thou overthrown the proud in their uprising, 
Swiftly were they consumed before thee in thy wrath. 

With the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, 
On a heap the floods upon either hand stood up, 
The depths become dry land in the heart of the sea : 
The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, 
My soul shall delight itself in the abundance of the spoil : 8 

I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them — 
Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea swallowed them, 
They sank as lead in the surging waters. 



140 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

Who is like unto thee, Jehovah, among the Gods ? 
Fearful of name, and wonderful in works. 
The nations shall hear, they shall no more stand ; 
Sorrow shall take hold upon the inhabitants of Palestina. 
Then shall the dukes of Edom he , stricken with amazement, 
Trembling shall fall upon the mighty men of Moab ; 
The dwellers of Canaan their souls shall melt away, 
Dumb-foundered at thy deeds, at the greatness of thine arm. 
But the people of thy redemption thou shalt mightily bring in, 
Theirs shalt thou make the land of the inheritance of their foes ) 
Where shall thy Sanctuary, thy holy Sanctuary, be established, 
The seat of thy kingdom from everlasting to everlasting. 

And Miriam the prophetess with a timbrel in her hands, 
She and the women all with timbrels in their hands, 
Answering took up the song of thanksgiving and of praise : 
Sing unto Jehovah, for he hath triumphed gloriously, 
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. 

Even with as little alteration as this, anything of the 
rhapsodic kind falls into this metre. Many of the verses 
above are identical with the actual Bible forms, the metre 
ordering itself by its own force. 

Of course there is no possible arrangement of words which, 
by help of the hover, may not be apportioned into some kind 
of feet, the above example included ; but it is affirmed that 
this is main, and that no other ruling will meet the occasion. 

Note a peculiarity that the verse takes upon itself the form 
of a couplet ; very rarely, indeed, that of a triplet. With 
exception of an occasional opening line before the metre 
gets under weigh, each verse must have a parallel, or appear 
lame ; we thus get a certain connection between this verse 
and midabout. 

Another reason why four-main must be held distinct from 
the ordinary metric system is this : on observation, in spite 
of its length, the verse cannot be said to have the cesura in 
the ordinary acceptation, except that which at last is so 
powerful, it forms the lines into couplets. Yet, on the other 
hand, every main accent may be said to have its attendant 
pause, and the movement consequently to be made by short 
cesural sections : — > 



MAIN. 141 

Sing: unto | Jehovah | for he hath triumphed | gloriously, 
The horse | and his rider | hath he thrown | into the sea. 

Consider the short cesural member to form an integer like 
a foot, and four- main is no other than that twice double. 
The perception of this may lessen surprise should this prin- 
ciple of proportion be found to have been made use of in 
widely different languages. 

The oft-commented parallelism of Hebrew poetry cannot 
be of very different nature from midabout and main, the 
parallel of structure further carried out in the thought, so 
that the members have more or less an equivalence of mean- 
ing. The suitability this method displays for rendering 
the poets of Palestine or exalted discourse, of any sort, is 
astonishing. The present writer has applied it to the whole 
of the book of Job. 

Again, the old alliterative measure of the Anglo-Saxon 
must infallibly have developed into this but for the intro- 
duction of rhyme, which paved the way to regular feet, a 
style since upheld to the exclusion of all other, by over- 
sedulous regard for the classics. 

The four following lines, and others similar, owe all the 
admiration they have gained to the like cesural structure : — 

Warms | in the sun, 1 1 refreshes | in the "breeze, 
Glows } in the stars, 1 1 and hlossoms | in the trees, 
Lives | through all life, 1 1 extends | through all extent, 
Spreads | undivided, || operates | unspent. 

An evident affinity in structure may be remarked between 
main, the alliterative, and interior rhyme formations, ail 
adopting the same sort of twice double arrangement, following 
the road traced for them by the rhythmic force, which works 
thus in cesural divisions. 

It was with four-main in mind that further notice was not 
taken at the time of how the hover might be used to diversify 
verses in march-metre of greater length than five feet. But 
suppose we construct a verse of six feet, the accents occurring 
in their places but for the hover, if tha note be stirring the 



142 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

verse rises into main at once, and nothing is gained by keep- 
ing it to nominal feet only hampering its variability : — 

Loud as a trumpet clang in rapturous appeal 
Sounded the voice of the Fardarter from his throne. 

The foot structure has only a chance when the tone is any 
way subdued, instancing the inferiority of foot to main :— 

Borne on the melancholy streaming of the wind 
A note which fell with dying softness* on the ear. 

These two samples are identical in structure, though cer- 
tainly few would suppose it. 

Perhaps the strangest feature of the whole is that the same 
verse will often appear unobjectionable as main : — 

Wondrously | hast thou overthrown | the proud | in their uprising. 

But weak if reckoned by metric feet : — 

Wondrous | ly hast | thou 6 |ver thrown | the proud | in their | upris|ing. 

Can any argument be founded on this, it is that foot 
measurement bears too hard, is unjust to the powers of the 
language. Indeed the writer of main will find it, in a great 
measure, necessary to avoid falling into a regular foot forma- 
tion, as productive of results too smoothly weak to stand. 

It was seen how little change was required to adopt the 
song of Moses to this metre ; as little would be required for 
the Psalms or any other portion of Hebrew poetry. But it 
should be borne in mind that the Psalms^ as they at present 
stand, are actually in a kind of verse already. 

What is the following but the kind of Ossianic free-song 
referred to before : — 

When God heard this he was wroth and took sore displeasure at Israel, 
So that he forsook the tabernacle in Silo ; even the tent that he had 

pitched among men. 
He delivered their power into captivity, and their beauty into the enemy's 

hand. 
He gave his people over also unto the sword ; and was wroth with his 

inheritance. 



MAIN. 143 

The fire consumed their young men ,• and their maidens were not given 

in marriage. 
Their priests were slain with the sword ; and there were no widows to 

make lamentation. — Ps. lxxviii. 60. 

Or the following, unchanged save for mere points of ren- 
dering not affecting the metre, what is it but main in lines of 
varying length ? — 

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, 
When we remembered thee, Zfon. 
As for our harps we hanged them up 

Upon the willow-branches by. 
When they who led us captive required of us a song 

And melody in our heaviness : 
Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 
How should we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ! 

f f I forget thee, Jerusalem, 
May my right hand forget her cunning. 

Jerusalem, of thee unmindful 
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. 
Remember the children of Edom, Lord, 

That day of thy City how they cried, 
Down with it, down with it, e"ven to the ground 1 
Thou too, daughter of Babylon perditioned, 
Happy he who serveth thee even as thou hast us : 
A blessing on him who taketh thy children, 

And dasheth them against the stones. — Ps. cxxxvii. 

Whether this kind of arrangement be open here to the 
charge of not being distinct enough in ordering of the lines, 
like that quoted from Shelley's ' Queen Mab,' is another 
question. The slight stricture there passed does not, how- 
ever, seem to apply in this instance, but the untrammeled 
cadencing of the great rhythmic force to determine the point 
sufficiently. 

A strain like the above when unadorned is adorned the 
most, infinitely preferable to any of the clinking ballads made 
upon it, be they by whom they may. Even Byron's genius 
here, perforce, encountered a rebuff. 

To point still further the connection between verse and 
prose, note how Wilkie Collins, in his tale of ' Armadale, 



144 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

makes use, most likely unconsciously, of this most regular 
stanza in main rhythm : — 

The solitude that had been soothing, the silence that seemed like an 
enchantment on the other broad in the day's vigorous prime, was a soli- 
tude that saddened here, a silence that struck cold in the stillness and 
melancholy of the day's decline. 

This passage must have struck many, doubly conspicuous 
as it is by a near approach to a rhymed close. It is the 
elevation of his subject that has lifted the writer to verse, for 
the story actually culminates at that passage, and from that 
point declines in every element of interest. The piece may 
be variously arranged in lines to wear more the aspect of 
verse, but its thorough proportionate structure appears the 
more marked the longer it is observed. 

Looking into the structure that main assumes, it appears 
that very little curbing would be required to reduce any 
particular line of it to the regulations of ordinary metre. 
But what would be gained by so doing? A specious regu- 
larity, and that is all, which, to impose to the abolition of 
freedom, would be totally unwarranted. Understand, those 
who confine themselves to feet will have to look to syllables, 
while the rhythmic rhapsodist need only regard his words, a 
difference greater than perhaps many at first imagine. 
Finally, main is the easiest and most powerful metre in the 
language, and with its invention, the shackles that have for 
ever restrained the highest flights of the poet may be said to 
have been knocked away ; especially let the improvisatore's 
heart rejoice, for this is the metre for him. 

If five-main be attempted, the line, as used in four, will 
not readily receive any accession to its length ; so room for 
the additional accent must be found within, consequently 
lowering the effect of those in previous possession. The re 
suit is a degradation into a nondescript perhaps not unsuitable 
for comedy. 

Good that your lawful wedded wife should have that to do ; 

Deuce a bit deserves such a wicked old wretc h as you are. 

That one of my virtuous precocity should be so treated. 

O if I had my choice again wouldn't I have a pious man, 

One with scripture on his lips and a bible always in his pocket. 



ON THE RENDERING OF GREEK METRE. 145 

The tendency appears to be still to four- main, but with 
strong accents secondary, which serve to neutralise its power 
and bring it to something of an irregular foot-structure. 

The field that main offers to take up is most wide, a guide 
over what has hitherto been regarded, for poetical purposes, 
a profitless and trackless waste. 



XXIII. 

ON THE RENDERING OF GREEK METRE. 

The limits of metric possibilities in English are now nearly 
traced, nothing more but the question of regular prosody re- 
maining. 

In English, if a vowel is long, the accent seems to dwell on 
it, as in note ; if short, it seems to pass it over and strike more 
on the following consonant, as in not 7 ; but this has no con- 
nection whatever with the importance of the words metrically, 
nor is the accentual stress less on one than on the other. 
Thus the length or shortness of a vowel has no connection 
with the beat, or with the emphatic importance of the word 
or syllable. 

Where there is no accent the vowels are as incommen- 
surate as can well be, but in prosody, such as are followed by 
two consonants or more are held long by position ; others, as 
a rule, short. Did not custom blind the sense, surely the 
absurdity of such a distinction would strike every one. The 
purpose of prosody, where native, was to smoothe the way to 
singing, the ordering of consonants and vowels therefore 
reasonable, which is more than can be said for English at- 
tempts which have no such aim. 

Those who would bring prosodial metre into English should 
first do it in Greek and Latin, for there, to Englishmen, it 
little more exists as a reality than in their own tongue. It 
seems to be quite overlooked that our pronunciation of the 

L 



146 ENGMSH VERSIFICATION. 

classics is altogether accentual, and that the metres of the 
ancients, as we know them, are altogether our own inventions. 
In the verses of Homer, as pronounced by a Greek, English- 
men are as much at a loss to recognise the measure as they 
are the words, the home distortion having been as great in 
one as in the other. 

Those who would have that an accented syllable in Eng- 
lish answers to a long one in Latin and Greek have indeed a 
certain degree of warrant for their assertion ; it is the rule 
they have applied to the dead languages already. In adopt- 
ing so-called G-reek metres they are but endeavouring to 
reclaim their own misbegotten progeny. 

The argument against all quantitative arrangement with 
us lies in the fact that, while no form of English can be with- 
out accent, this beat has such a robust nature that no other 
measuring quality with which it comes in contact has any 
chance against it, nor even in competitive union therewith 
can make itself the least felt. Witness this attempt, a 
straight mark to indicate length, a curved shortness after the 
usual method : — 

6 migh|ty mouthed | in[|ventor of ] harmonies 
skilled | to sing | of || time or e|termty, 
Godgiftjed 6r|ganvoice | of England, 
Milton a | name to re] sound for | ages; 
Whose Titan angels Gabriel, Abdiel, 
Starred from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, 
Tower as the deep-domed empyrean 
Kings to the roar of an angel onset — 
Me rather all that bowery loveliness, 
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, 
And bloom profuse and cedar arches, 
Charm as a wanderer out in ocean 
, Where some refulgent sunset of India 
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, 

And crimson-hued the stately palm woods 
Whisper in odorous heights of even. — Tennyson. 

The verse is supposed to be meted as indicated, but, to 
speak sooth, the balance by which the verses of Euripides 
were comically weighed against those of JEschylus would be 



ON THE RENDERING OF GREEK METRE. 147 

needed to determine, even in this choice example, which were 
the long syllable and which the short. The verse laughs at 
such finnicking, and asserts its true division thus : — 

migh|ty-mouthed | inven|tor of liar | monies. 

This imitation of an Alcaic is good, not because it re- 
sembles an Alcaic, but because all the requirements of a good 
piece are satisfied. 

A point deserving especial notice is the poet's constant use 
of long words, accent three back, such as harmonies, eternity, 
for the closing place in the long lines. Dactyls are out of 
the question, but the metric effect is of course the same, 
whatever appellation it goes under. One exception, and one 
only, to this long word regimen is found in the second line 
of the last stanza, the run of which it alters considerably. 

Were it not for the effectual relief afforded by the different 
ending of the shorter pair, the effect of this long-word ending 
would be intolerable ; witness another form of it : — 

"While about the shore of Mona, these Neronian legionaries 
Broke and burnt the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess, 
Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, 
Mad and maddening all that heard her by her fierce volubility. 
Near by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camalodune, 
Yelled and shrieked between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy. 
They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous populaces. 
Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating ? 
Shall I heed them in their anguish ? shall I brook to be supplicated ? 
Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant ! 
Must their ever-ravening eagle's beak and talon annihilate us ? 
Tear the noble heart of Britain, leave it gorily quivering. 

But doubtless its author only intended this piece as a joke, 
and would not thank us to suppose it for more than styled a 
metrical experiment. 

Measurement in quantity is then impracticable, and, what 
is more, any mere metre of accent that resembles prosodial 
only by the palpable error of the same nominal feet aforesaid 
is by no means to be trusted as giving an equivalent. Better 
throw the reins on the neck of Pegasus at once, and trust 

L 2 



148 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

that he will find his way home to Parnassus aright by 
instinct. 

Better results may be arrived at by taking estimate of the 
resources at command of the original poet to be imitated, 
than by following his metre step by step. 

Take now the elegy. Given that the hexameter is known, 
how could a Latin poet impart an elegiacal tone to his com- 
position ? Clearly not, as in English, by altering the succes- 
sion of feet, for that is a point that does not seem very 
material in his language. 

The efforts of the Latin poet result, as known, in the penta- 
meter alternated with the hexameter. Why the pentameter 
is what it is, and not other, we will attempt to explain. 

It begins as its fellow measure begins, then suddenly at 
the middle of the third foot halts at a fixed cesura ; then be- 
gins again hexameter-wise, only always with two dactyls, and 
again breaks. Wherefore these breaks on the long syllable ? 
In that appears to be the key of the mystery. 

Et tua | Leth8e|is || acta da|buntur a|quis. 

The aim is to produce a break in the run of words, which, 
as said, no mere change of succession in the feet will bring 
about ; an effect which, on the other hand, want of syllabic 
weight in our tongue will not allow us to reproduce by the 
same method. 

The pentameter then is but a modified hexameter, the two 
members ending broken. Why both members are thus 
treated, instead of the first only, and then a regular close, or 
vice versa, may be for euphony, or symmetry, or what — a 
slight question apart from the other, that we may let rest. 
Such explanation as has been offered is not done so on full 
assurance, for on matters foreign one may be in error. 

The English verse that answers to the pentameter is that 
elsewhere described as crown verse, with the fall cadence in 
the first member ; but owing to its, to a great measure, pre- 
serving the same final run, and being of the same length as 
other crown verses, there is no need for the two forms to 






ON THE RENDERING OF GREEK METRE. 149 

regularly alternate, as in the case of the ancient elegiac, nor 
indeed to occur in equal number at all. 

After these two leading verses, the next Greek metre of 
importance is the iambic, about which there is no conflict of 
opinion that march-metre is the fit representative. 

The choruses of Greek plays afford more room for ponder- 
ing. On due consideration main in some phase seems most 
to recommend itself for these ; either in short equal lines of 
two or three beats, or in some longer and more irregular in- 
termixture, like that of the ' Waters of Babylon ' before cited, 
There is something altogether out of character in using rhyme 
for the purpose. 

How particular forms of stanza may be represented is 
really not of much moment, for as verse only imports at all 
as a vehicle of expression, wherever this is right the form 
cannot be far out. 

To take Alcaics now, of which so good an instance has 
been given early in this section, it is doubtful whether 
Collins's ' Ode to Evening,' instanced Chap. IX., has not an 
equal claim to be designated Alcaic likewise. The difference 
between the two styles really lies little deeper than the use 
of long or short words for the close of some of the lines al- 
ready commented on, a moot-point at the writer's election, 
though the long-word ending may be in itself the more 
spirited and effective. 

Sapphics again in this example, otherwise characterised 
elsewhere in the same section : — 

Swift through the sky the vessel of the Suras 
Sails up the fields of ether like an angel. 
Rich is the freight, vessel, that thou bearest : 
Beauty and virtue. 

Here, beyond that there are three lines wound up by a 
shorter one, the verses are no nearer to or farther from real 
Sapphics than any other lines of totally different feet, quick, 
slow, or what not. 

Finally, it is a safer guide to use the best practical expo- 



150 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

nent of the class of verse the language affords, than to ape 
imitation closer, which is only delusive. 

As to choice of a metre, when doubtful, let the subject 
choose its own is about the best advice ; fitness or unfitness 
will soon display itself. Till mastery of metrical effects be 
obtained by knowledge of versification and habit of practice, 
merely to be handling a capable metre may not much avail ; 
and when this is acquired, a few trials will soon suggest a 
road, of which, indeed, there may be more than one equally 
suitable. 

In all cases, however, especially if it be an original work 
that is being written, the preliminary draught, mental or 
otherwise, must be rigid indeed if the measure employed do 
not greatly influence its character, as certainly it must its 
expression. 



XXIV. 

CONCLUSION. 

It is reported that the Greeks used to scan the best passages 
in their orators, and note the succession of feet they had em- 
ployed; but in English there is no equivalent metrical 
quality to take note of, the proportionate value of syllables 
being for the most part indeterminate, nor feet proper exist- 
ing, save as a nondescript quantum under dictation of the 
beat. As to remarking all accents, and their distances one 
from another, it has been shown that a verse deals summarily 
with those accents that do not fall in with its arrangement ; 
while the differentiation and ordering into less and greater 
accents, noticed in certain metres, and everywhere apparent 
in prose, is seen to complicate matters to the extent of 
.tendering all attempts of the kind quite futile. 

Presumably, a prose passage might, on occasion, exhibit 
approach to verse by any and every metrical method there is, 



CONCLUSION. 151 

but though the form of the sentence that shall be under 
consideration be of such a kind as to settle, indisputably, to 
what metre it could be most easily referred, still the rhythm 
given to the sentence as soon as it is arranged as verse is not 
at all the same run or cadential tone which it had of itself 
naturally, but a something different, more definite and 
measurable. It would be idle, then, to look for any metrical 
ordering in prose ; we can at most but find the capability for 
such ordering, nothing more. If, to accents we look, and rule 
them after march-metre they will be weakened, if after main 
they will receive force additional. 

Besides the differences arising from this cause, there are 
also others which have their source in cadence, and as this 
enters more deeply into the structure of metre than any other 
constituent, so it deserves our most attentive regard. 

The rhythmic elevation that seems to attend any poetical 
description would also appear to be not so much structural in 
any metrical sense of arrangement of words and sentences as 
in the reader's natural perception of the elevation, whence a 
tendency to impart to it a cadence according. 

Take the following piece of poetical description from 
Charlotte Bronte's ' Shirley ' : — 

The gray church and grayer tomb look divine with this crimson gleam 
on them. Nature is now at her evening prayers ; she is kneeling 
before those red hills. I see her prostrate on the great steps of her 
altar, praying for a fair light for mariners at sea, for travellers in deserts, 
for lambs on moors, and unfledged birds in woods. ... I saw — I now 
see — a woman Titan, her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the 
heath, where yonder flock is grazing ; a veil, white as an avalanche, 
sweeps from her head to her feet, and arabesques of lightning flame on 
its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like that horizon ) 
through its blush shines the star of evening. Her steady eyes I cannot 
picture : they are clear, they are deep as lakes, they are lifted and full 
of worship, they tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of 
prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the 
early moon risen long before dark gathers ; she reclines her bosom on 
the ridge of Stilbro' Moor, her mighty hands are joined beneath it. So 
kneeling face to face, she speaks with God. 

If the cadential tendency be followed up, and the passage 



152 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

be arranged into midabout sections, as best fits, it will be 
found, being then verse, that more than four accents are not 
readily accommodated in any member ; either on the main 
principle the less important or less well situated will be over- 
ridden — see verse 7 below ; or the number of accents being 
above cesural limit, will better divide and balance together — 
see verse 1 1 below : the choice of which two methods will be 
often an affair of personal judgment. On the other hand, if 
the members are inordinately short the natural tendency will 
be to make the most of every accent possible, imparting a 
more impressive air, as in verses 5 and 14 below, two blank 
verses : — 

The gray church and grayer tombs look divine with this crimson gleam 

on them. 
Nature is now at her evening prayers ; she is kneeling before those red 

hills. 
I see her prostrate on the great steps of her altar, praying for a fair light 

for mariners at sea, 
For travellers in deserts, for lambs on moors, and unfledged birds in 

woods. 
I saw — I see her now — a woman Titan : 
Her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder 

flock is grazing ; 
A veil white as an avalanche sweeps from her head to her feet, and 

arabesques of lightning flame on its borders. 
Under her breast I see her zone, purple like that horizon ; 
Through its blush shines the star of evening. Her steady eyes I cannot 

picture ; 
They are clear, they are deep as lakes, they are lifted and full of 

worship ; 
They tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. 
Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early 

moon risen long before dark gathers. 
She reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' moor; her mighty 

hands are j oined beneath it. 
So kneeling face to face, she speaks with God. 

On a general view, taking all the unrhymed forms together, 
they appear to form a sort of scale of gradation, or chain of 
connection, complete in order and application for poems of 
any length and character : — 



CONCLUSION. 153 

Trip, of four feet, without cesura: — lightly descriptive 

approaching the ballad. 
Blank, of five feet, shifting cesura : — one kind, the strict 

solemnly descriptive; the other the differentiated, 

conversational. 
Grown, of six feet, with cesura more central: — the true 

heroic metre. 
Midabout, feet dubious, cesura central : — of fixed unfixity, 

monotonous variety, somewhat elegiac. 
Main, cesura and feet coalescing: — the true rhapsodic, of 

untold power. 

How great an advance this is upon the ordinary count, 
which halts doubting at the hexameter, and would rule that 
trip and march-metre are the sole generic forms for an ordi- 
nary unrhymed poem that the c genius of the English language ' 
will allow, needs no further setting forth. 

And when, again, it is borne in mind that the feet of which 
these were constructed were supposed to have some occult 
connection with trochee, iambus, dactyl, &c 5 under which 
names they went, as inferior types of the same, unto the 
blinding pi all free and independent regard, with mock- 
quantitative prosody still pursued by those who should have 
known better, it is seen, not to mention minor matters, that 
the light let in was sorely needed. 

There are those, and no satire in the case comes up to plain 
statement, who deliberately set down the line 

Fathoms deep in Norman water lies the good ship Alabama 

as a hexameter ! and, more incredible still, there were news- 
papers found that could allow correspondents to discuss con- 
siderations of the kind. It is indeed time that the schoolmaster 
was up and about on the subject when such absurdity is 
possible. 

Those, in like case, who doubted whether Tennyson w r as 
justified in writing 

Long lines of cliff breaking had left a chasm, 



154 ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. 

instead of 'had breaking left,' also showed their ignorance; 
but this instance would be trifling were it not the sort of 
ground that some critics have heretofore gone upon to bring 
Shakspeare and others to what they call rule ! 

Again, was ever discussion so unsatisfactory as that which, 
first and last, has taken place on the subject of the hexameter ? 
It is really wonderful so much could have been said about it, 
and so little arrived at. But all this, it is hoped, is now of 
the past, and that the veriest child will be henceforth enabled 
to give judgment on points of this kind in his ow r n language, 
earlier at least than as to the length and shortness of sylla- 
bles in dead and gone Latin. 

Ehymed measures are many times more in amount than 
unrhymed, but yet is there such a family resemblance between 
them all that the palm of range and diversity must rest with 
the other group. 

Either system alone would suffice for nearly all classes of 
poetry, but English, it is seen, is doubly rich. 

In conclusion, though English yields to Greek in melody 
and tunefulness, yet, if it be borne in mind how much more 
vigorous expressiveness is the requirement for poetry than is 
simple warbling, it may be doubted whether English, as a 
poetic instrument, yields to any language under the sun, 
whether it does not even surpass all its rivals in this sphere, 
even as far as it does in promise of world-wide domination. 



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